Coastal State Competences Regarding Safety of Maritime Navigation: recent trends

AutorRoberto Virzo
CargoUniversity of Florida, Florida, Estados Unidos
Páginas19-42
Coastal State Competences Regarding Safety of
Maritime Navigation: recent trends
Competência dos Estados Costeiros Relativa à Segurança da Navegação
Marítima: tendências recentes
Roberto Virzo
University of Florida, Florida – Estados Unidos
Università degli Studi del Sannio, Benevento – Itália
Abstract: The erosion of the freedom of the
seas regime that has been taking place espe-
cially since the end of World War II seems
to be continuing more gradually and in a
different manner. In order to protect the in-
terests of the international community co-
inciding more or less with their own needs,
the coastal states, the archipelagic states, the
regional fishing organizations for the high
seas and the International Seabed Authority
are ever more often exercising functions that
previously had been carried out above all by
the flag state. In this work we examine the
evolution of international law governing the
safety of maritime navigation. The analysis
covers, first, the cooperation between coast-
al states and the International Maritime Or-
ganization and, subsequently, coastal states’
independently exercisable competences:
both topics concerning the reinforcement of
the safety maritime navigation.
Keywords: International Law of the Seas. Sa-
fety of Maritime Navigation. Coastal States.
Resumo: A erosão do regime da liberdade dos ma-
res que se tem verificado especialmente desde o
fim da Segunda Guerra Mundial parece estar pros-
seguindo de modo mais intenso e de outra manei-
ra. A fim de proteger os interesses da comunidade
internacional que coincidem mais ou menos com
suas próprias necessidades, os Estados costeiros, os
Estados arquipelágicos, as organizações regionais
de pesca em alto-mar e a Autoridade Internacional
dos Fundos Marinhos estão cada vez mais exercen-
do funções que anteriormente eram levadas a efei-
to, sobretudo, pelo Estado de bandeira. Neste traba-
lho examina-se a evolução do direito internacional
que regula a segurança da navegação marítima.
A análise abrange, em primeiro lugar, a cooperação
entre Estados costeiros e a Organização Maríti-
ma Internacional e, na sequência, as competências
exercitáveis independentemente dos Estados costei-
ros; ambos os tópicos relacionados à regulação da
segurança da navegação marítima.
Palavras-chave: Direito Internacional Maríti-
mo. Segurança da Navegação Marítima. Esta-
dos Costeiros.
Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2177-7055.2015v36n71p19
Recebido em: 1º/09/2015
Revisado em: 05/10/2015
Aprovado em: 13/10/2015
20 Seqüência (Florianópolis), n. 71, p. 19-42, dez. 2015
Coastal State Competences Regarding Safety of Maritime Navigation: recent trends
1 The Competences of Coastal States Regarding the Safety of
Navigation and the Erosion of the Freedom of the Seas Regime
The erosion of the freedom of the seas regime that has been taking
place, especially since the end of World War II, at an ever-increasing pace
up to the beginning of the 1990s, seems to be continuing more gradually
and in a different manner.
It is a known fact that the main effects triggered by the acute phase
of that process of erosion were the reduction of free areas of sea, the rise
of the sovereignty of coastal states and archipelagic states over territorial
seas, the exercise by those same states of special ‘sovereign rights’, the
powers of control or jurisdiction over sui generis maritime zones and the
continental shelf and evolution of the legal nature of some competences
of the flag state transformed from exclusive to concurrent ones.1
Currently, the spatial expansion of the rights and powers of coastal
states and archipelagic states has been attenuated. For example, there has
been no endorsement of unilateral attempts by some coastal states to exer-
cise powers of control aimed at managing and rationally conserving some
fish stocks in areas of the high seas adjacent to their exclusive economic
zones (EEZ).2 Neither has any coastal state so far proclaimed a marine
protected area3 beyond 200 nautical miles of their EEZ.
Moreover, while it is true that ‘creeping jurisdiction’ cannot be said
to have completely stopped, this is only because the Commission on the
Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) set up by the United Nations
1 In this regard, see T. Scovazzi, ‘The Evolution of the International Law of the Sea:
New Issues, New Challenges’, Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de droit international de
la Haye, Vol. 286, 2000, pp. 39-244.
2 For an analysis of the practice and legislation of some coastal states that in the 1990s
proposed the establishment of these new maritime zones, seealso for the other literature
cited therein – R. Casado Raigón, ‘La liberté de la pêche en haute mer’, in D. Vignes, G.
Cataldi & R. Casado Raigón (Eds.), Le droit international de la pêche maritime, Bruylant,
Brussels, 2000, pp. 128-157.
3 On some types of these marine protected areas, see infra § 12.4.

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