CASTRO, AARON GABRIEL A.

5. Why is there a need to draw the lines the scope and the extent of our national territory?

The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters
embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction,
consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the
subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and connecting
the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal
waters of the Philippines. Thus, suggest that each island has its own territorial sea and base lines
must be drawn around each island. That these lines were not pulled out of thin air but drawn from
the colonial treaties that defined the unity of land, water and people which is the Philippine
archipelago. The straight baseline method of describe precisely the territorial sea which is consists of
drawing straight lines connecting the outermost points on the coast without departing to any
appreciable extent from the general direction of the coast.

The line drawn around the archipelago marks the outer limits of the historic territorial seas of
the Philippines, which will be referred to here as the Philippine Treaty Limits. The Philippine Treaty
Limits are contested in international law because they evidently breach the twelve-mile breadth of
the territorial sea provided for in the Law of the Sea Convention, which the Philippines signed and
ratified.

7. What is UNCLOS?

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is an international treaty
which was adopted and signed in 1982. It replaced the four Geneva Conventions of April, 1958, which
respectively concerned the territorial sea and the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the high
seas, fishing and conservation of living resources on the high seas.

The Convention has created three new institutions on the international scene :

– the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,

– the International Seabed Authority,

– the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

IUCN and UNCLOS

The Convention has become the legal framework for marine and maritime activities
and IUCN with its partners are working towards an implementing agreement (UNCLOS IA)
that will close important gaps in governance. A positive result would provide a measure of
protection and conservation of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) where there is
none at present.
Why is UNCLOS important?

Because UNCLOS covers a wide range of ocean issues, it also provides the legal
framework for their sustainable development. UNCLOS has thus emerged as an important
part of the international legal system and also serves as an important instrument for the
protection of the marine environment.

Why was UNCLOS created?

The law of the sea developed from the struggle between coastal states, who sought
to expand their control over marine areas adjacent to their coastlines. By the end of the 18th
century, it was understood that states had sovereignty over their territorial sea. The
maximum breadth of the territorial sea was generally considered to be three miles - the
distance that a shore-based cannon could reach and that a coastal state could therefore
control.

After the Second World War, the international community requested that the United
Nations International law Commission consider codifying the existing laws relating to the
oceans. The commission began working towards this in 1949 and prepared four draft
conventions, which were adopted at the first UN Conference on the Law of the Sea:

The First United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I) from February
24 until April 29, 1958. UNCLOS I adopted the four conventions, which are commonly known
as the 1958 Geneva Conventions:

 The Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone;

 The Convention on the High Seas;
 The Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the
High Seas; and
 The Convention on the Continental Shelf.