Maintaining Freedom of Navigation and Overflight in the Exclusive Economic Zone and on the High Seas

Efforts to expand coastal State jurisdiction to include security jurisdiction in the EEZ were soundly rejected by a majority of the nations that participated in the UNCLOS negotiations The delegates present achieved consensus on provisions that accommodate the resource interests of the coastal State in the EEZ without diminishing user State interests in freedom of navigation and other internationally lawful uses of the sea in the zone. Continued efforts by some States to reinterpret the Convention to unilaterally and unlawfully advance their national interests in the EEZ impinge on traditional uses of the oceans by all States and are inconsistent with international law, long-standing state practice and the intent and negotiating history of UNCLOS. If these efforts succeed, the Convention will unravel over time and the international community will once again be plagued by a new wave of excessive maritime claims. Coastal State competency in the EEZ is strictly limited to resource rights, jurisdiction over resource-related offshore installations and structures, marine scientific research, and protection of the marine environment. Coastal States do not retain security jurisdiction in the EEZ, and may not regulate lawful military activities in the EEZ that are consistent with the UN Charter, UNCLOS, the Chicago Convention, and other relevant international law instruments. The creation of the EEZ was a package deal—coastal States were granted exclusive resource rights and user States retained the high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight, and other lawful uses of the seas associated with those freedoms, which have always applied beyond the territorial sea.