Defining Islands And Rocks Under The Law Of Sea

Defining Islands and Rocks is a complex and important issue under the Law of Sea. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereafter UNCLOS), islands are entitled maritime zones as mainland territory, including territorial sea, contiguous zone and exclusive economic zone. If a country has islands, not only means that it has jurisdiction over the waters extended by islands, but also gives the country advantages in maritime delimitation between adjacent or opposite States. Sometimes mid-ocean islands may have even broader maritime zones than coastal countries because they are far away from the waters claimed by other countries. Article121(3) states, however,"rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own should not have exclusive economic zone (hereafter EEZ) and continental shelf (hereafter CS)" without specifying what is "rock", either "human habitation" or "economic life ". Since the article121(3) is too ambiguous to tell when an "island" is a "rock", there are numerous disputes over insular features, especially those with abundant fisheries and hydrocarbon resources in surrounding waters. This article researches the islands regime under the UNCLOS, examines the states practices in maritime delimitation and unilateral maritime claims, so as to figure out the factors that affect defining islands and rocks, as well as outline the rules identifying islands and rocks.Concrete discussion starts from the second chapter. Chapter two introduces the islands regime under the UNCLOS, as well as legal issues related to defining islands and rocks. According to the historical materials of the third United Nations conference on the law of sea, the "rocks" are first mentioned in the UNCLOS, can be originally referenced to remote and uninhabited islets. Thus a rock can be consider as a special type of island, also should be "a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide". In addition, this chapter explains size has little effect upon defining islands and rocks, also excludes artificial island as the island under the article121(1) and then limits high tide into average condition. As for "human habitation" and "economic life", there should be at least a stable community of human being on the insular feature, temporary visit cannot attribute to human habitation; the wording that of their own emphasis rocks’ economic life is self-sufficient.Chapter three discusses the states practices of maritime delimitation and unilateral maritime claims related to islands and rocks, intending to figure out factors that affect defining islands and rocks. There are two main ways for an insular feature to generate maritime zones:one is declaring jurisdiction over waters when delimit maritime boundaries, the other is by unilateral determining baseline system and claiming for relative maritime zones. Since islands can have EEZ and CS but rocks do not, defining whether the feature is an island or a rock is the premise for both ways to generate waters. This chapter divides the practices and cases into four categories: offshore insular features, mid-ocean features, features that have EEZ or CS and features that have yet EEZ and CS.After examining the delimitation agreements and decisions, as well the states practices over unilateral maritime claims, there is no general rules for distinguishing islands from rocks. Chapter four outlines a framework for insular feature’s socio-economic value assessment, and the assessment is divided into two parts: survival and development capacity evaluations. Survival evaluation concerns the feature is capable to support human habitation currently or in the future, factors related to survival include climate, freshwater, fauna and flora etc. Development evaluation focuses on feature’s socio-economic life brought by human activities such as starting construction, fishery industry and tourism etc. Also, United Nations Commission on the limits of the Continental Shelf is suggested to be certain department for feature’s socio-economic value assessment.In order to make the socio-economic evaluation workable, chapter five applies statistic methods into the capacity assessment thus access quantitative analysis to defining islands and rocks. Statistic methods have been introduced into legal research since19th centuries. In comparison to other pure legal methods, statistic methods are more objective and easier to use in feature’s socio-economic evaluation. This chapter introduces generalized linear model and hierarchical weighted factor assessment in defining islands and rocks. The generalized linear model illustrates how those factors (e.g. climate, population and size etc.) affect feature’s socio-economic attributes, and hierarchical weighted factor assessment is able to predict a feature with certain factors is likely to be an island or a rock.Whether the geographic features within Spratly Islands are islands or rocks is key issue of South China Sea dispute. Chapter six namely introduces the back ground of sovereignty disputes over South China Sea. South China Sea contributes the most important navigation route, also provide abundant fishery, oil and gas, especially waters around Spratly Islands. Besides the coastal states around the area, the United States, Japan, India and Russia are all involved in the South China Sea issues. Then, this chapter applies the socio-economic capacity assessment into the features within the Spratly Islands so as to clarify China’s claim over this area, also proposes to reach on an Interim Agreement of joint development before the final maritime delimitation has been settled.