Fisheries under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

Under the traditional rules of international law, the sea was divided into the high seas and the territorial seas and in each case different rules and regulations obtained. As for the exploitation of fishery resources, the coastal state possessed unquestioned rights to regulate any such exploitation within its territorial sea and to apply its domestic legislation fully to any person engaged in such activities. Similarly, the coastal state was free to prohibit fishing by foreigners in its territorial sea and thus to monopolize those fishery resources. On the high seas, however, no state was allowed, at least in principle, to impose its jurisdiction upon any foreign vessel, since fishing on the high seas fell under the general regime of the high seas. The existence of these two disparate regimes, namely, exploitation under the full control of the coastal state and exploitation free from interference by any country, was a fundamental presumption underlying the exploitation of fishery resources.