Conflict Between Coastal State And Flag State Jurisdiction
- IJLLR Journal
- 31 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Srikanth A, Gujarat Maritime University
I. INTRODUCTION
The coastal state has the right to exercise authority over its internal and territorial waters and can formulate legislations pertaining to the safety, environment and security of their maritime boundaries. On the other side, the flag state has the regulatory control over the ship which bears the flag of the concerned flag state and it has the exclusive rights pertaining to the high seas and it has to make sure that the ship which is registered under the purview of the concerned flag state shall not deteriorate the environment of the coastal state. Any form of misconduct by the ship shall make the flag state liable to resolve or mitigate the persisting dispute. At times there comes a situation where the rights of both the states overlaps. This paper focuses on how the international instruments helps in mitigating the disparities and it probes into the efficacy of the international legal instruments in resolving and providing solution for the same. The significance of maritime jurisdiction was addressed in the dichotomy between mare liberum and mare clausum. The concept of mare liberum is that the sea is for everyone or freedom of seas in contrary to the above notion mare clausum refers to the restricted sea or closed sea where the people from other ethnicity or other region can’t have access to that particular area of waters. Later, many conventions were demarcated to mitigate the disparities and UNCLOS was enacted in 1982 which demarcated appropriate zones which helps in maintaining and stipulating balance between the mare liberum and mare clausum.
RESEARCH QUESTION:
1.) Whether the existing international instruments and authorities mitigates overlaps with regards to the rights between the coastal state and flag state?
2.) Whether the existing international instruments and authorities maintain balance between the Mare Liberum and Mare Clausum?
