Research On The Legal Relationship Between Legal Status Of Warships And Jurisdiction Of Coastal States

According to the provisions of The1982United Nations convention on the law ofthe sea(referred to as UNCLOS),Warships can be defined in this way:“warship”means a ship belonging to the armed forces of a state bearing the external marksdistinguishing such ships of its nationality, under the command of an officer dulycommissioned by the government of the state and whose name appears in theappropriate service list or its equivalent,and manned by a crew which is under regulararmed forces discipline. Through this provision, we can make clear the elements ofwarships and distinguish the difference between warships and merchant ships. Inaddition, The UNCLOS includes the legal regimes of the territorial sea, thecontiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf, and the high seasand so on. And on these seas, warships have immunity; jurisdiction and other rightswhich make it become a "privileged class". Therefore, warships have a special legalstatus in the law of the sea. At the present, the scholars have reached a consensus inmany aspects, such as immunity of warships on the high seas. However, under thespecial background of the era, there still exists a great many defects and blankness inthe Convention. And so there is a product of compromise of interests of all countries.The legal status of warships is just one example. This issue has triggered debate.On the one hand, the coastal state has sovereign rights and jurisdiction in watersunder the control of countries, such as the territorial sea or the exclusive economiczone. On the other hand, with due regard for justice and international trade, theConvention provides certain rights and freedoms for the countries, whether coastal orland-locked. As one component of armed forces, warships also have correspondingrights which determine the legal status and property of the warship in Law of the Sea,and are endowed with the special legal relationship to the warship which is differentfrom the merchant ship. However, for some key problems of warships, such as theright of innocent passage and foreign military operation in exclusive economic zone,there is no regulation. In this case, in order to maintain their own benefits, countries ofthe world have nothing in common with each other for the view of interpretation ofthe Convention. Some marine powers regularly send their warships near the othercountries, and all this is being done in the name of “seafaring expeditions ", eventhough they may launch military activities. They believe that the Convention endowswarships a special legal status so that warships could have more rights under the lawthan merchant ships. This claim provides convenience for their military activities. Butsome developing countries believe the total opposite for them. If foreign warshipswere permitted to operate in the waters under their jurisdiction, then this sort ofbehavior could jeopardize national security. Thus, these countries tend to ask other countries to respect their rights that come from the provisions of the Convention. Andthey believe that, based on these rights, they can adopt some measures, for instance, todevelop relevant law or regulation to limit foreign warships, and in this way they wantto fight against marine powers.This paper starts with the analysis of the provision of warships of the UNCLOS.This paper focuses on the study of legal relation between legal status of warships andjurisdiction of coastal states, accompanied with the study of two controversial issuesin this area: one is whether warships have the right of innocent passage through theterritorial sea, and the other is foreign military operation in exclusive economic zone.There are four parts in this paper. The first part is the theoretical study of the legalstatus of warships, as do theories below the stage. It analyses the rights andobligations that warships have in different region, as to make clear the legal status ofwarships. The second part mainly discusses right of innocent passage through theterritorial sea. This part starts from the appearance of the right of innocent passageand then it discloses bone of contention: whether the right of innocent passagethrough the territorial sea can be applied in warships. Part III is about the introductionof foreign military operation in exclusive economic zone. Based on the above thatmentioned, combining theory and practice, this part discusses whether warships havethe right of navigation in exclusive economic zone. Besides, it explores the legalcharacter of military surveying. The forth discusses how to protect China’s maritimerights and interests. Under the current situation of maritime security, this paper alsooffers some proposals in three contexts: the development strategy, the development ofmaritime force, the legislation development of Law.