ons of which are
excerpted from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS), which alone contains the full and definitive descriptions:
territorial sea - the sovereignty of a coastal state extends
beyond its land territory and internal waters to an adjacent belt of
sea, described as the territorial sea in the UNCLOS (Part II); this
sovereignty extends to the air space over the territorial sea as well
as its underlying seabed and subsoil; every state has the right to
establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not
exceeding 12 nautical miles; the normal baseline for measuring the
breadth of the territorial sea is the low-water line along the coast as
marked on large-scale charts officially recognized by the coastal
state; the UNCLOS describes specific rules for archipelagic states
contiguous zone - according to the UNCLOS (Article 33), this
is a zone contiguous to a coastal state's territorial sea, over which
it may exercise the control necessary to: prevent infringement of its
customs, fiscal, immigration, or sanitary laws and regulations within
its territory or territorial sea; punish infringement of the above laws
and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea; the
contiguous zone may not extend beyond 24 nautical miles from the
baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured
(e.g., the US has claimed a 12-nautical mile contiguous zone in
addition to its 12-nautical mile territorial sea)
exclusive economic zone (EEZ) - the UNCLOS (Part V) defines
the EEZ as a zone beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which a
coastal state has: sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and
exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether
living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of
the seabed and its subsoil, and with regard to other activities for the
economic exploitation and exploration of the zone, such as the
production of energy from the water, currents, and winds; jurisdiction
with regard to the establishment and use of artificial islands,
installations, and structures; marine scientific research; the
protection and preservation of the marine environment; the outer limit
of the exclusive economic zone shall not exceed 200 nautical miles from
the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured
continental shelf - the UNCLOS (Article 76) defines th