The Islands In The Waters And Their Effects

Since the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea (hereinafter referred to as the Convention) give birth to in 1982, the new order for the seas and oceans is forming gradually. The Convention confirms that the islands’legal status is same with the continent. The island can have the breadth of the territorial sea, the contiguous-zone, the exclusive economic zone, and the continental shelf.In order to strive for the enormous resources lies in the sea and ocean and other rights, counties around the world began paying more attention on the role of islands in maritime delimitation and started a "blue enclosure movement" based on the island. China is a big country with sea, many of which involves in the issues of marine boundary. There are many islands, which distributed in the Bohai, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the South Sea and other waters. With the countries around the world begin to seek the marine right, the hard marine environment on the surrounding islands is a bother problem that China is facing, especially the Diaoyu Islands and the South China Sea islands. Therefor it has an important and realistic significance for resolving the marine delimitation by islands and protect our country’s sea rights.The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part, which begins with the Article 121 of UNCLO, analyze the theory of island and points out the problem and then confirms the island has the independent status in the law, an island, without considering any other factors in maritime delimitation, has the territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf as the mainland does.The second part concentrates on the effects of islands on marine delimitation. First, the easy states the general provisions of the marine delimitation in the Convention, such as the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf, and definite the rule of the marine delimitation. Secondly, make a summary about the ways to deal with the effects of islands on maritime delimitation cases:"full effect", "partial effect", "zero effect", which is based on the marine delimitation cases include the international judicial decision and arbitration award. Finally, draw a conclusion that the island is the main factor that decide the effect degree in the marine delimitation.The third part, which uses the theory of the effects of islands on the international maritime delimitation to analyze the issues related to the delimitation of the continental shelf of the East China Sea and the South China Sea dispute and other related problems, all of which China is facing. And the part tries to provide legal advice for resolving the dispute of the delimitation on the continental shelf of the East China Sea and the South China sea. The way to deal with the dispute mainly by analyzing the sovereignty on the Diaoyu Islands and the Nansha Islands and individual objective natural conditions, and finally, give a conclusion that, in the international marine delimitation, the situation, the middle bounded islands with small areas, uninhabited and sovereignty dispute generally apply to the case of zero effect, should not be taken into consideration. For the complex issue, we must clear China’s inherent sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands in the first time, and combined with the natural and economic conditions of Nansha Islands, we must in accordance with the fairness principle and based on other influencing factors with our coastal state, to advocate a certain region of the sea rights.