contiguous zone
Article 33 of UNCLOS allows the coastal state, in a zone adjoining its territorial sea and not extending beyond 24 nautical miles from the baselines, to exercise the control needed to prevent and punish breaches of its customs, fiscal, immigration and sanitary laws committed within its territory or territorial sea. It is a zone of limited enforcement jurisdiction, not sovereignty.
India's Maritime Zones Act, 1976 fixes the contiguous zone at 24 nautical miles and goes further than UNCLOS by including measures relating to the security of India. The contiguous zone lies within the exclusive economic zone, so the coastal state's resource rights there come from the EEZ regime.
Example
The Coast Guard may stop a smuggling vessel 20 nautical miles out, because that is within India's contiguous zone where customs laws can be enforced.
In Indian law
- Article 33, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982
- Section 5, Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone and Other Maritime Zones Act, 1976
See also
territorial sea · exclusive economic zone · hot pursuit · continental shelf
Read more in the study notes
- Law of the sea: baselines, territorial sea, contiguous zone and EEZ (Public International Law)
- Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961: cultivation of uncultivated land, co-operative farms, and fragmentation and consolidation of holdings (Land Law)
- State jurisdiction: principles and exemptions (Public International Law)
- Continental shelf, high seas and the deep seabed (Public International Law)