An EEZ is not sovereign territory, stupid!
Within that belt, it has “sovereign rights” over living and non‑living resources in the water column and seabed, plus certain jurisdiction over artificial islands, marine scientific research and environmental protection. It can license fishing, drill for oil and gas, lay pipelines, and regulate those activities.
But note the wording: “sovereign rights,” not full sovereignty. Sovereign rights are functional, limited and subject to the Convention; sovereignty is comprehensive, like what we have over Luzon or our 12‑nautical‑mile territorial sea. In the EEZ, foreign ships may still navigate freely. Foreign military vessels may transit without asking permission. Foreign aircraft may overfly without filing flight plans with the coastal state. We cannot close the EEZ and call it our “air defense identification zone by right of sovereignty” just because the water lies within 200 nautical miles.
This is why, when a foreign warship sails through our EEZ but outside our territorial sea, it is not “violating Philippine sovereignty.” Treating every foreign navy ship in the EEZ as an “intruder” in “our waters” is false, emotional politics, not law.
The term, unfortunately, is certainly confusing. To most ears, “exclusive” sounds like a fence: this is ours, keep out. “Economic zone” evokes industrial estates where the host government exercises tight control. Put the two together, and you get the wrong notion that this belt of sea is a kind of offshore territory where we can do whatever we want and forbid whatever we dislike.
The term was formulated by Unclos as a compromise between the militarily and economically weaker developing coastal countries, and the superpowers led by the US. For most of modern history, the “freedom of the seas” principle favored maritime empires and big navies. Coastal states, especially in the developing world, looked at foreign fleets vacuuming fish off their coasts and oil companies drilling just beyond a narrow territorial sea and thought: Why should outsiders get rich on resources just off our shores?
Latin American states led the push for a 200‑nautical‑mile maritime belt from their coasts in the mid‑20th century, with some claiming sovereignty over that while others only wanted it to be their “patrimonial seas.” The big powers, with their huge navies, strongly opposed any move that would close large swaths of ocean to their naval and commercial traffic. Unclos was the grand bargain: Coastal states got a maximum 200-nautical-mile EEZ with strong economic rights, but agreed that navigation, overflight and the legal character of the water would mostly remain akin to high seas.
Compromise
The name reflects that compromise. “Zone” meant that this is not simply an extension of territorial sea. “Economic” narrowed the core of the regime to resource use. “Exclusive” appeased coastal states that wanted clear priority for their fishermen and oil companies. In closed‑door negotiations, these words made sense among diplomats and lawyers. On the streets of coastal states like the Philippines decades later, they morphed into “this sea is ours, full stop.”
Sovereignty means a state has the highest authority over a territory, subject only to international law. Within its land and territorial sea, it can regulate almost everything: who can enter, what ships must do, what planes must ask. It can build bases, impose criminal law, and exclude foreign militaries absent consent.
Sovereign rights in the EEZ are narrower. They include exploration and exploitation of natural resources, conservation and management of living resources, and jurisdiction over certain installations and environmental matters. We cannot, purely by invoking the EEZ, forbid innocent passage of commercial vessels, dictate where warships may patrol, or impose general criminal law on foreign sailors engaged in mere passage.
When our politicians, an ignorant former magistrate, and a crazy Philippine Coast Guard official declare that any presence of a foreign coast guard vessel in our EEZ is a “violation of sovereignty,” they are over‑claiming, essentially lying. When they imply we can treat that vessel as we would an intruder inside Manila Bay, they are misleading the public. That kind of rhetorical inflation is not harmless. It sets up the expectation that if we do not “drive out” every foreign ship from every inch of our EEZ, we are somehow surrendering territory, betraying the nation, or being cowardly.
These people are also ignorant of Unclos’ Article 74 (1), which says, “The delimitation of the exclusive economic zone between States with opposite or adjacent coasts shall be effected by agreement on the basis of international law, as referred to in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, in order to achieve an equitable solution.” If no such delimitation agreement has been reached, none of the EEZ-claimant states can unilaterally declare that its EEZ is valid.
Boundaries
We delimited our EEZ boundaries with Indonesia in 2014 in negotiations that took 20 years. We have overlapping EEZs with Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei, although no negotiations have even been planned for a delimitation of these maritime claims. We cannot, therefore, unilaterally claim that the EEZ, whose western side was declared by President Aquino III as the “West Philippine Sea,” is valid. At this point, therefore, the “WPS” is only in our minds, not in reality.
On the other hand, a state’s territorial sea (12 nautical miles from the baselines, or roughly the points of a country’s land territory that is closest to the sea) is equivalent to its land territory. Under Unclos, EEZ rights cannot override another state’s territorial sea.
China claims the entire Spratlys (which they call Nansha islands) as part of its “land territory,” although it has not declared (and deposited with the United Nations) the exact geographical coordinates for its territorial sea, nor its EEZ.
Retired magistrate Antonio Carpio has recently unleashed what is his most dangerous lie, which a Manila Times columnist unthinkingly repeated: “There is no need to announce the coordinates of the country’s exclusive economic zone, as international law provides for EEZ limits.”
“A coastal state has the inherent right to its continental shelf without need of any formal announcement, proclamation or occupation. There is, therefore, no need to proclaim the coordinates of the outer limits of the coastal state’s EEZ,” Carpio added.
This is a lie, and a dangerous one. Some 56 countries have submitted to the UN the exact coordinates of their EEZs, as this strengthens their legal claims. We submitted to the UN in 2014 the limits of our southern EEZ to prevent an overlapping with that of Indonesia. We submitted the boundaries of the erstwhile named Benham Rise in 2009 (approved by the UN in 2012) after 10 years of surveying, strengthening our claim to that vast area, and justifying our renaming of it to Philippine Rise.
Coordinates
The submission of the coordinates of our EEZs and ECS is analogous to a government-approved and deposited certificate of one’s ownership of property, which contains its geographic coordinates. Carpio is in effect saying in this analogy that this is not needed, only our public declaration of ownership to that property.
That we don’t have the coordinates of the limits of our EEZ is the principal reason why the National Mapping and Resources Information Authority (Namria) has been unable to produce the country’s official map.
Why, then is Carpio, many politicians, and our defense establishment propagating the lie that the EEZ is “our territory”? Because it is politically convenient. It inflames nationalist sentiment. It allows them to cast themselves as defenders of “every inch” of something that never was an inch of land in the first place.
There is a deeper reason, though. Portraying China as a bully encroaching on our territory is a narrative the US has been disseminating to demonize China, which is its biggest rival, threatening to overthrow its hegemony in Asia.
If China is in reality a friend who is defending its territory from incursions from our coast guard, whose officials have become American minions, public opinion would not have allowed President Aquino III and Marcos Jr. to authorize the US to set up its nine de facto military bases starting in 2012, despite the fact that the Senate in 1992 declared that the Constitution does not allow any foreign military bases in foreign soil. The US has openly declared these are bases that will be used in case of a war erupting between China and the Philippines, an admission that we will be drawn into that war, whether we like it or not.
The late president Aquino III and his other officials are on record claiming that these bases are a deterrent to “Chinese aggression.” That idea obviously is based on a colossal, stupid misunderstanding of what an EEZ is, disseminated by the likes of Carpio.
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*This sentence, displayed prominently in President Clinton’s campaign headquarters, was intended to remind the staff to focus on the economic downturn during his rival George H.W. Bush’s term. However, the expletive could very well refer to the likes of Carpio and the nutty Philippine Coast Guard’s Jay Tarriela.
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An EEZ is not sovereign territory, stupid!
Source: Breaking News PH
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