Section 6 - Jurisdiction Flashcards
what is jurisdiction
Jurisdiction → legal domains over which the law has power
what is territorial jurisdiction
Inherent in State sovereignty
A State’s exclusive authority over its territory
What is terra nullis, and does it exist
No one owns/claims any part of the earth - this doesn’t exist anymore
WHen was jursidiction and sovereignty first created?
1648 Peace of Westphalia
Where is it easiest to find jurisdiction?
territorial base of sovereignty and jurisdiction
What is an example of a boundary issue, and where do theys tem from?
boundary issues can be part of a colonial legacy. A British colonial
treaty set in motion a boundary dispute between Belize and Guatemala that lasted 143 years. Boundaries originally marked out on a map in the comfort of a foreign minister’s office may never have been properly surveyed through a jungle or across a desert. In time, Belize granted maritime concessions to Guatemala in
exchange for the latter dropping its land claims against Belize, and then the Inter-American Development Bank provided $200 million to demarcate an accurate boundary between the two.
What is one way of solving territorial disputes?
territorial jurisdiction may be decided in favor of the state that demonstrates effective administration over time in at least one policy area.
What is res communis
oceans and seas are res communis, or a commons available for the use of all states.
what is mare clausum, and who advocated for it?
Portugal and Spain became the dominant seafaring states in the 1400s and 1500s and arranged for a mare clausum, or closed sea, to restrict the
development of rising trade competitors like England and Holland
what was the argumetn for mare liberum
Hugo Grotius, Dutch lawyer and diplomat argued persuasively in his 1609 Mare Liberum (Free Sea) that enormity of oceans could not, by their very nature, be owned as could land, and that all states would benefit commercially if the seas were open to the merchant vessels of all
Explain the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention
The LOS convention offers numerous rules. Several seaward jurisdictions start with the baseline of a coastal state, which is the land-water demarcation marked at low tide. If a state’s coastline has significant indentures or a fringe of island, that state is allowed to draw a reasonable
straight baseline along the outermost islands
what are archipelago states
states with a territorial base consisting of a set of islands recognized as geographical
and political entities. Close to 35 states, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, are
allowed to draw their baselines around the outermost islands, giving these states
sovereignty over the waters within the encircling baselines
what are internal waters
which are rivers,
lakes, ports, bays and the like, generally on the landward side of the baseline. The
LOS convention briefly mentions internal waters but customary law mostly controls
this jurisdiction.
what is the dispute about Hudson Bay and internal waters
Bays, as an internal water area, can sometimes be particularly troublesome.
Canada claims the large Hudson Bay as part of its internal waters, but the
United States has objected in the past on the grounds that the mouth of this bay, at
fifty miles wide, far exceeds Canada’s territorial sea jurisdiction measured from
either side of the bay’s mouth. The United States has argued international waters
must surely lie in the middle of the bay’s entrance and much of the center of the bay,
making this bay available to all ships. Canada rejects the width-of-mouth argument,
insisting that the Hudson Bay is a historical bay that Canada has governed in all
respects for a lengthy period of time.
what is the terrirotiral sea?
band of water along a state’s coast under the state’s exclusive sovereignty, including the airspace above and the seabed below. The LOS set it at 12 miles
what is the difference between innocent passage and transit passage
Broadening the territorial sea from 3 to 12 miles also brought heightened concern over the long-established principle of innocent passage, the continuous and expeditious voyage of a foreign ship through the territorial waters of a coastal state as long as there were no harmful effects to that state. Obviously, much more of the sea would be enclosed as territorial sea with the change to a 12-mile width so the innocent passage rule now comes into play much more frequently.
A specialized version of innocent passage is transit passage through one of the many straits that may fall within the territorial jurisdiction of one or two states. There as a firm expectation that ships and aircraft of all kinds are not to be impeded as theyfollow a strait. A strait is a narrow sea passage connecting two bodies of open sea.
what is a contiguous zone
contiguous zone that extends 24 miles from the baseline and overlaps the territorial sea. This type of jurisdiction traces back to English “hovering acts” of the eighteenth
How far away from their coastline can states claim jurisdiction?
states can now claim a jurisdiction of 200 miles of the seabed from
their baseline, and in some special geographical cases 350 miles depending on the
natural prolongation of its territory known as the continental shelf. With this new
jurisdiction, coastal states could latch onto a new dividend of natural gas, oil, and
minerals located in their adjacent shelves.
explain EEZ and its advantage
exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 miles
of sea measured from the baseline and overlapping other jurisdictions. With the
EEZ, coastal states acquired sovereign rights to conserve and exploit all living and
non-living resources in the waters and seabed. The chief advantage is exclusive fishing
rights in a world relying more and more on fishing to help feed a burgeoning
global population (now at 6.6 billion and estimated to reach 9.5 billion by the 2050s.)
Since edible fish stocks mostly range inside this jurisdiction, it is safe to say that
almost all the important fisheries of the world fall under the sway of one coastal
state or another.
what is res communis?
what is left of the ocean is known as the high seas. These great bodies of water are a res communis open to all states for unimpeded navigation, fishing, over-flight by aircraft, and the
laying of cables and pipelines. The extension of several types of seaward jurisdictions under the LOS convention of course has reduced the size of the open seas.
what are some of the mains issues of the LOS?
The first concerns the nationality of a ship on the high seas. Every ship must fly the flag of its nationality, determined by where the ship is registered. According to Article 91 of the LOS convention, “There must be a genuine link between the State and the ship.” A greater incongruence between a stated rule and the actual practice can hardly be imagined where flags of convenience are concerned
A second problem is the historical scourge of piracy. The LOS convention clearly addresses this issue and defines piracy in its Article 101. Any private act of violence or depredation against passengers or crew and their ships or planes on or above the high seas is piracy. The problem is not with the law but its level of enforcement.
The last, and at one time the most controversial, issue centers on the provision of
a Seabed Mining Authority for licensing mining activities and ensuring that profits
are shared by all states.
What were the first two airspace conventions, and what did they say?
Immediately following the First World War, the 1919 Paris Convention for the
Regulation of Aerial Navigation gave states exclusive sovereignty, or jurisdiction, for
the column of air above a state’s landed territory and territorial sea. The 1944 Chicago
Convention on International Civil Aviation further confirmed exclusive state control
over airspace and also laid down many specific rules, including assigning nationality
to planes according to their country of registration. The Chicago Convention is the
framework treaty for airspace as the LOS convention is for ocean law.
what is ICAO, and when was it created?
Chicago Convention’s most important contribution was the creation
of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which became a specialized
agency of the UN System in 1947. The ICAO’s Executive Council has
recommended numerous rules for international navigation and safety that are
regularly accepted. This oversight function is critical since countries have organized
international air travel through a vast web of bilateral treaties, an arrangement
that might be anarchical without the ICAO
can states shoot down international civilan flights,a dn what is an example where the answer would be yes
no, BUT 9/11 flights