United Nations Convention For The Law Of The Sea And Sea Dispute Settlement: Specific Reference To South China Sea
Shruti Sharma, Symbiosis Law School, Nagpur
Introduction
The oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface. Oceans are the essential basis for various purposes such as marine biodiversity like Phytoplankton produce around one third of the oxygen, we breadth, oceans are rich source of unlimited natural resources, they even provide for transportation of people and trade. Around 80% of volume of global trade is done through sea1. It was between the 15th century till the 17th century that number of supremacies tried to claim their control over the parts of the sea. In the year 1609, a book named ‘Mare Liberum’ which translates to ‘freedom of the seas’ was written by a Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius. This book was considered as the foundation of international legal doctrine regarding the seas and oceans. After centuries long argument between the idea of Grotius and John Selden the idea of ‘freedom of seas’ was finally accepted. Even though Grotius’s idea was accepted, but in Asian seas and Indian ocean the general idea accepted was ‘Freedom of navigation’ which means that any ship flying with a flag of a nation will not be interfered by another state apart from exception under international law. In the 16th century principles of jus gentium was derived by Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria which included the ideas of freedom of the seas in a more rudimentary fashion2.
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