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The Latin American Contribution to the Modern Law of the Sea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2009
Extract
The Latin American countries have played a very important and constructive role in the development of the modern law of the sea. They participated actively and positively in the preparation of all the parts of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, that was open for signature in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982, but their most important contributions are related to two specific areas which happen to be the most innovative parts of the Convention: the new concept of the exclusive economic zone (Part V) and the régime of the sea-bed and ocean floor beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (Part XI). In order to appreciate the importance of these developments, one has to bear in mind that the creation of the exclusive economic zone concept was part of a larger package deal which included the precise determination of the maximum breadth of the territorial sea, the special régime for straits used for international navigation and the special régime for archipelagic States. Likewise the new concepts of the exclusive economic zone and the international area of the sea-bed and ocean floor required a more precise determination of the outer limit of the continental shelf. These innovations thus had a major impact on most if not on all parts of the convention.
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1. Although the Knglish and Dutch speaking countries of the Caribbean area are full members of the Latin American and Caribbean group in die United Nations, and for the most part played an active role in the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, for the purposes of this article the term Latin American is used in the traditional sense and thus refers only to the twenty republics whose languages are Spanish, Portuguese and French, whose religion is predominantly Roman Catholic and who have a very similar historical past: they were colonies of Spain, Portugal and France that became independent republics in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, with the sole exception of Cuba that did not gain its independence until the year 1901. They are, in alphabetical order: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The common culture and the geographical proximity of these countries make this group the most homogeneous of all the regional groups.
2. The treaty concluded in 1942 between Venezuela and the United Kingdom on the submarine areas of the Gulf of Paria, whose purpose was the delimitation of their respective areas of sovereignty and control over the sea-bed and subsoil outside the territorial waters of the High Contracting Parties, corresponds clearly to the principles set form only a few years later in the Truman Proclamation of 1945 on the Continental Shelf.
3. Argentina, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Venezuela.
4. The English version of the original Spanish text of this Declaration has been taken from Shigeru Janis, , The International Law of the Ocean Development (1976). This applies also to the English versions of the Montevideo, Lima and Santo Domingo Declarations quoted later in this article.Google Scholar
5. In the early 1950s the majority of States had a three-mile territorial sea, but there woe others that claimed a four-mile, a six-mile, a ten-mile, or a twelve-mile territorial sea.
6. It is useful to read the references to these problems in Resolution LXXXIV, adopted by the Tenth Inter-American Conference mat took place in Caracas, Venezuela in 1954; Resolution XHI, adopted by the Inter-American Council of Jurists at its Third Meeting in Mexico City in 1956, containing the ‘Mexico principles on the legal régime of die sea’; and the resolution adopted by die Inter-American Specialized Conference on ‘Conservation of Natural Resources: Continental Shelf and Marine Waters’, held in the capital of die Dominican Republic in 1956.
7. It is sufficient to quote the following passage of this declaration:
“That the Resolution contains pronouncements based on economic and scientific assumptions for which no support has been offered and which are debatable and which, in any event, cover matters within die competence of die Specialized Conference called for under Resolution LXXXTV of the Tenth Inter-American Conference;
That much of die Resolution is contrary to international law;
That the Resolution is completely oblivious of die interest and rights of States other titan the adjacent coastal States in the conservation and utilization of marine resources and of the recognized need for international cooperation for die effective accomplishment of that common objective; and That die Resolution is clearly designed to serve political purposes and therefore exceeds die competence of the Council of Jurists as a technical-juridical body.’
8. This Committee, usually given the abbreviated title of “Sea-Bed Committee”, received from the Assembly, General, in 1970, the additional mandate of preparing the Third UNCLOS.Google Scholar
9. The term ‘patrimonial sea’ was used for the first time by Edmundo Vargas Carreño, a Chilean jurist, in a paper on the law of the sea written in 1971 at the request of the Inter-American Committee of Jurists, of which he was then a member. However, the term had a different meaning and scope in Vargas Carreno's paper, as it included all the areas under national jurisdiction, that is to say, die territorial sea and continental shelf.
10. See Art 3 of Law No. 13.833 of 29 December 1969 (Diario Oficial of 5 January 1970).
11. Named after Jorge Castañeda, bead of the Mexican delegation to the Conference.
12. The 1982 Convention has not yet entered into force but it is generally felt that Parts I to X, dealing, among other things, with the territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, continental shelf and high seas, should already be considered as rules of customary international law.
13. Document A/AC.138/49.
14. Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela.
15. Mawdsley, A. Aguilar, ‘Lawaf the Sea: The Latin American View’, in Pontecorvo, G., ed. The New Order of the Oceans — The Advent of a Managed Environment.Google Scholar