Author: Kshitish kumar golpeda, II Year of B.B.A.,LL.B from National law University, Odisha.
Most interesting topic are exception and deviated from the norm all of us live in countries, where there are laws and rules and governing bodies us what we can and cant do. But, 70 of the world is oceans, where there are no country governing bodies to tell us what’s right and wrong . that why maritime law exists.
Lets start a hypothetical a baby is born on a cruise ship sailing in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. What nationality does it take. this is the coast of some fictional place in some fictional country governed by some fictional government
Every country is allowed 12 miles of territorial waters. It used to be 3miles the distance of cannon could shoot off shore but that has changed.
Those 12 miles are the property they can do pretty much whatever they please in it all domestic cause apply. Foreign ships are, however, sometimes allowed to enter into these water under the principle of innocent passengers.
If ships have an innocent purpose which does not including fishing, polluting, weapon practice or spying they are allowed to pass through territorial water of a foreign notion without permission as long as they do so quickly and without stopping on shore. beyond the territorial waters there is another 12 miles of the contiguous zone.
This zone allow a country to enforce laws as long as they fall into one of four categories. If the laws have to do with customs, taxation, immigration or pollution, they can be careful in the contagion zone.
Beyond the contiguous water is the exclusive economic zone, also known as the eez. this zone extend 200 nautical miles from shore.
Beyond the territorial water the EEZ is in international waters, however, only the country who holds the exclusive economic zone has the right to harvest natural resources in this area. this law was originally set up to help with disputes over fishing rights silea been incredibly useful with the boo m in oil drilling. All these laws do, however ,occasionally cause some dispute due to overlapping zone.
When two countries are less than 400 nautical miles away from each others, it is up to them to decide where their respective economic zones end mostly solve it civilly by separating the zones at the equidistant point from each of their shores, however, when the stak, are so high, such as in the south china sea, countries can be a bit less cordial so, our cruise ship baby.
Lets change the hypothetical and say that the cruise ship was sailing in us territorial water less than 12 miles away from shore. Every ocean going vessel is required to registered in some country.
you will notice that most large cruise ships are resisted in tiny far away countries. Panama ,a nation with fewer people that monopoles holds the registration of one quarter of the worlds ships because taxes and labour costs are low.
A ship registered in Amsterdam could legally have prostitution and marijuana on board, as long as they got rid of the dries and shut down the brothels before sailing into territorial water.once a ship in the territorial water of a country the ship is physically in this is same for nationality law, kinds a baby on Dutch ship within 12 miles of us is a baby in American since us is one of the 30 countries that unconditionally grants citizenship to any baby born within the country, a baby born in us territorial waters is lucky enough to receive the us passport.
There are two exception
1.foreign diplomats visiting or living in the us with a diplomatic not to the law of the us or any other nation other than they
Consequent the babies of foreign diplomats do not automatically receive American citizenship.
Most of the worlds countries use the principle of bloodline to determine if a baby should get citizenship rather than whether or not a baby was born in the country. however, there are some countries that wont give citizen to a baby born outside the country in that case, the baby would take the citizenship of the country in which the ship is resisted.
There’s a long history of exploiting maritime law during probation, US ships started to change their registration to panama and other foreign countries so they could serve alcohol in international water.in the mid century, casins boats left from many cities where gambling was illegal to partake in legal gambling in international water.