What is the law of the sea and the history of the formation of international maritime law?

(Baonghean.vn) -The Law of the Sea of ​​Vietnam was passed by the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on June 21, 2012 and officially took effect from January 1, 2013.

The Law of the Sea of ​​Vietnam is the process of internalizing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that Vietnam has signed and officially ratified. At the same time, it also demonstrates the responsibility of the Vietnamese State in deploying, organizing and implementing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea as a member state. This is a very important legal event in the law-making process of the Vietnamese State in relation to international treaties that Vietnam has signed and ratified.

The Law of the Sea of ​​Vietnam has come into effect and has become an important legal tool to regulate all diverse and complex relationships taking place in the seas and continental shelves under Vietnam's sovereignty, sovereign rights and national jurisdiction. However, to put the Law of the Sea of ​​Vietnam into practice and make it effective, the first priority task is to disseminate, propagate and educate all classes, organizations, forces, individuals... in the country, especially those who regularly work closely with the sea and ocean about the entire content of the Law of the Sea of ​​Vietnam.

To contribute to the completion of this urgent task, in compliance with the Decision of the Minister of Information and Communications and according to the plan and instructions of the competent agencies of the Ministry of Information and Communications and related ministries and branches, Dr. Tran Cong Truc has cooperated with experts on Vietnamese maritime law to compile the document on propaganda of maritime law on Vietnam's seas and islands, Vietnam's Law of the Sea - Questions and Answers.

Nghe An Electronic Newspaper will introduce the questions and answers of this book in turn.

Question 1. What is the law of the sea?

Answer: The Law of the Sea is a set of legal regulations and rules used to regulate related relationships taking place in all seas and continental shelves; if signed and participated in by entities in international relations, it is called international maritime law; if enacted by a country, it is called national maritime law.

The current international maritime law in effect is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS 1982). The 18th National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam passed the National Law of the Sea on June 21, 2012, called the Law of the Sea of ​​Vietnam. The Law of the Sea of ​​Vietnam officially took effect from January 1, 2013.

Question 2. History of the formation of international maritime law?

Answer: In human history, the issue of expanding and defining the scope of maritime zones under national rights has always been an important issue, a rich and complex topic of many forums, of interest to the international community; sometimes it has even been the cause or origin of many conflicts and wars on different scales between countries.

The process of forming and expanding the scope of national sea areas is closely linked to the formation and development of national and international law; closely linked to the history of human exploration, exploitation and use of the sea.

Since the emergence of nations, coastal states have always had a tendency to expand their power towards the sea. This tendency is in conflict with the ambition of maritime powers to maintain freedom of action at sea. In the process of struggle between these two tendencies, institutional principles and legal regulations have emerged to regulate relations and harmonize interests between states. That has created the foundation for the birth and development of maritime law.

The historical moment that marked the beginning of the formation and development of world maritime law was in the 16th century, when the domination of Spain and Portugal at sea was met with the rise of the Netherlands, as a new commercial maritime power.

In the 19th century, the concept of "national power ends where the power of its weapons ceases" was concretized by the range of cannon being 3 nautical miles. Britain was a maritime power at that time and accepted the principle of determining the breadth of territorial waters as 3 nautical miles.

By the end of the 19th century, the principle of 3 nautical miles of territorial waters was no longer enough to protect the fisheries of coastal states, so many countries had different regulations on the width of their territorial waters, 4 or 6 nautical miles, and some countries even regulated the scope of fisheries protection.

After World War I (1914 - 1919), in 1930, the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations (UN), convened the first International Conference on the Law of the Sea in The Hague (English: The Hague; Dutch: Den Haag) of the Netherlands. This conference recognized the sovereignty of coastal states over territorial waters and the right of innocent passage through territorial waters, but did not agree on the breadth of territorial waters.

After World War II (1939 - 1945), the United States asserted its right to protect fisheries outside its territorial waters, especially the Truman Proclamation (1945) asserted its sovereignty over the natural resources of the seabed and subsoil of its continental shelf, which at that time was considered to end at a depth of 200m of water. Many coastal countries followed the United States in claiming sovereignty over their continental shelf resources, and this situation created a new problem of international maritime law. Some South American countries such as Peru, Chile, and Ecuador did not have a natural continental shelf, so they demanded an expansion of a sea area up to 200 nautical miles.

In 1958, to resolve the above situation, the United Nations convened the First International Conference on the Law of the Sea in Geneva with 86 countries attending. This conference adopted four international conventions on the law of the sea: the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone; the Convention on Fishing and Conservation of Living Resources; the Convention on the Continental Shelf; and the Convention on Fisheries Limits. However, some important issues have not been resolved: the breadth of the territorial sea, the right to pass through international straits that limit fishing areas, and the outer limits of the continental shelf.

In 1960, also in Geneva, the UN convened the Second Conference on the Law of the Sea to resolve the above-mentioned problems. These conferences also did not produce any results.

In 1973, the UN convened the Third International Conference on the Law of the Sea to continue discussing and adopting a new Law of the Sea Convention.

(To be continued)