exclusive economic zone

exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as defined under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), an area of the ocean extending up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) immediately offshore from a country’s land coast in which that country retains exclusive rights to the exploration and exploitation of natural resources.

Nature and development

The concept of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) was introduced at the Third United Nations (UN) Conference on the Law of the Sea (1973–82) in order to settle potential disputes between countries by awarding sovereign jurisdiction within boundary waters to coastal states. The establishment of EEZs was intended to mitigate disputes over offshore enterprises such as fishing and energy production. UNCLOS was ratified in 1994, and since then the number of signatories has grown to more than 150 countries, with established EEZ territory taking up about 42 percent of the oceans in the 21st century. Beyond the waters of an EEZ is considered the territory of the high seas, areas that are accessible to all countries.

The introduction of EEZs extended the traditionally respected boundary of territorial waters, which had been set at 12 nautical miles (22 km) from the coast at the First UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (1958). When the Third UN Conference first convened in 1973, offshore drilling operations were expanding. The first productive offshore oil well out of sight from land had been installed in the Gulf of Mexico in 1947. In 1975 the first deepwater oil discovery was made, also in the Gulf of Mexico. Demand for oil and natural gas was rising, and technology was evolving to find a way to harvest them from the seafloor, which made offshore drilling operations a topic of concern.

Coastal states retain certain rights within their EEZs, including conservation and management of fisheries and the production of energy from water and wind. An EEZ also provides coastal states certain rights for artificial islands, research stations, and marine preservation. UNCLOS indicates that the coastal state determines the acceptable level of fishing quotas in its EEZ, with a focus on sustainable management. The coastal state is entitled to fish the entire quota or to award the surplus to other countries. Provisions under UNCLOS also provide for the regular exchange of information about the populations of resources in an EEZ in order to promote international scientific cooperation.

UNCLOS establishes rights for how other countries may access the waters in an EEZ. It allows for innocent passage of foreign vessels; that is, ships are allowed to pass through as long as they do not participate in proprietary activities reserved for the coastal state, such as fishing or conducting research, without permission or engage in criminal activities. The designation of EEZs helps govern flyover and navigation rights and the installation of international submarine cables, pipelines, and other technological implementations of the energy sector, including offshore wind farms. EEZs have also been used to determine which country is responsible for removing marine hazards such as space debris.

Some countries gained large amounts of territory with the introduction of EEZs. The EEZ of the United States was established in 1983 by Pres. Ronald Reagan. At 3.4 million square nautical miles (about 11.7 square km), the U.S. EEZ is larger than its total land area, and it is one of the biggest EEZs in existence. Landlocked countries receive little to no profit from EEZs. In cases where countries’ coastal borders are closer than 400 nautical miles (740 km), the boundary line is commonly set in the middle, equidistant from both entities. In cases where the parties cannot agree on the boundary, the International Court of Justice or an arbitration tribunal determines the boundary.

Examples of international disputes involving EEZs

Fishing in the open ocean can impact harvests in nearby EEZs and lead to conflicts such as the Turbot War, which was a bloodless dispute between Canada and Spain. In 1995 a Spanish fleet was fishing for turbot 28 miles (45 km) beyond Canada’s EEZ, which was a disputed area where Ottawa attempted to extend its jurisdiction. Turbot populations in the area were already showing declines, and Canada’s coastal Newfoundland and Labrador province was still suffering from a collapse of the cod industry that had occurred a few years earlier. Turbot had been identified as a straddling stock, a fish that occurs within the boundary of more than one EEZ or between an EEZ and the high seas. Against this backdrop, the Canadian Coast Guard seized one of the Spanish fishing boats in the disputed territory, claiming that Spain was overfishing turbot according to the quotas set by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), an intergovernmental organization regulating fisheries in the North Atlantic. The arrest of the fishing boat found juvenile fish, which were too small to legally harvest under Canadian law and were considered important breeding stock. Tension between the two countries heightened as Spain demanded the release of the fishing boat and dispatched a warship to protect its fishing fleet. This dispute led to the UN’s straddling fish stocks agreement (adopted 1995), in which participants agreed to better conservation management for straddling fish and highly migratory fish in order to avoid disputes like the Turbot War in the future.

Overlap in EEZ claims can be a catalyst for international disputes. China and Japan have been involved in several high-profile disagreements over their EEZs in the East China Sea, as both countries claim an EEZ of 200 nautical miles from their coasts, yet the sea separating China and Japan spans only 360 nautical miles (667 km). This has led to disputes between the two countries regarding access to natural resources such as natural gas and stocks of fish.

Differences in the interpretation of coastal states’ rights within their EEZs under UNCLOS can also be a source of dispute. Since at least 2001 China and the United States have been involved in a high-profile dispute over whether China has the right to regulate a foreign military’s reconnaissance activities in its EEZ. Under the interpretation of UNCLOS that the U.S. and most countries agree with, the coastal states do not have the right to regulate foreign military activities in their EEZs beyond 12 nautical miles from their coasts, and notification of foreign military activities beyond that area is not required. However, under the Chinese interpretation of UNCLOS, China has the right to regulate foreign military activities within the entirety of its EEZ.