On Status Of Historic Rights In International Law

The puzzle of historic rights is not only an issue in International Law but also a hot topic in Law of the Sea. The concept of historic rights is related to historic bay, historic waters, historic ownership and so on. In fact, the historic right described in The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea refers to historic ownership; historic right is the theoretical basis for historic waters which is the subject matter of historic right, and historic bay is just one type of historic waters. The historic right researched in this thesis is about the right to historic water.To analyze the requirements of historic rights are helpful to understand historic right better. Historic rights include two requirements. One is coastal state’s effective execution of authority (sovereignty and jurisdiction) towards sea. The effective execution requires national behavior or state agencies’behavior. The effective national behavior must be overt and the intension of the state should be expresses precisely by action, also the exercise of authority have continuity to constitute general practice. The other is other countries take tolerant actions towards coastal state’s execution.As far as the position of historic rights in International Law is concerned, it involves the issue the historic rights’position in customary international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. First, historic rights form customary international law. There are main reasons:first, the historic right has the requirements of customary international law, and it has been reflected and proved by long-term, general and consistent national practice. Also there are judicial cases related to it. Second, it is unreasonable to regard historic water as an exception of customary international law. The premise of exception requires the existence of general practice. For historic water rights also require the physical and psychological factors, we cannot call it an exception. Besides, The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does not deny the existence of historic rights, this can be found according to the total principle of explanation of the law. According to the concept of intertemproal law, the act happened before The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea take effect should use the discipline which exist when the act happen. So The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea cannot deny the territorial sovereignty that one state has already obtained based on historic rights. It needs claims from interests related states to let historic rights be stipulated in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. As a method of obtaining territory, historic rights have differences from prescription and occupation.