International waters

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International Ownership Treaties
Antarctic Treaty System
Law of the Sea
Outer Space Treaty
Moon Treaty
International waters
Extraterrestrial real estate
High seas highlighted in blue.
High seas highlighted in blue.

The terms international waters or trans-boundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water (or their drainage basins) transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems (aquifers), and wetlands [1].

Oceans, seas, and waters outside of national jurisdiction are also referred to as the high seas or, in Latin, mare liberum.

Ships sailing the high seas are generally under the jurisdiction of the flag state, although in cases of piracy or slave trade, any nation can exercise jurisdiction under the doctrine of hostis humani generis.

Contents

[edit] International waterways

Sea areas in international rights
Sea areas in international rights

Several international treaties have established freedom of navigation on semi-enclosed seas.

Other international treaties have opened up rivers, which are not traditionally international waterways.

  • The Danube River has been internationalized so that landlocked Austria, Hungary and former Czechoslovakia (now only Slovakia has access to the Danube), and southern Germany (Germany itself is not landlocked, having access to both the North Sea and Baltic Sea) could have secure access to the Black Sea.

[edit] Links and references

[edit] International waters agreements

[edit] Global agreements

[edit] Regional agreements

At least ten conventions are included within the Regional Seas Program of UNEP, including:

  1. the Atlantic Coast of West and Central Africa (Abidjan Convention, 1984);
  2. the North-East Pacific (Antigua Convention);
  3. the Mediterranean (Barcelona Convention);
  4. the wider Caribbean (Cartagena Convention);
  5. the South-East Pacific (Lima Convention, 1986);
  6. the South Pacific (Noumea Convention);
  7. the East African seaboard (Nairobi Convention, 1985);
  8. the Kuwait region (Kuwait Convention);
  9. the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (Jeddah Convention).

Addressing regional freshwater issues is the 1992 Helsinki Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UNECE/Helsinki Water Convention)

[edit] Water body-specific agreements

[edit] International waters institutions

[edit] Freshwater institutions

[edit] Marine institutions

[edit] International waters resources on the web

[edit] See also