Maritime Zones

Take a boat from the Gateway of India straight out to sea and keep going. For the first few minutes you are in Mumbai's harbour. At about twenty-two kilometres you leave India's sovereign sea, at about forty-four kilometres you leave the zone where India can police customs and immigration, and at about three hundred and seventy kilometres India's exclusive claim to fish and drill ends. Beyond that, the sea belongs to everyone. The law draws these lines in steps, and each step gives the coastal State fewer powers than the last. This topic walks through those steps: the territorial sea, contiguous zone, continental shelf, exclusive economic zone and high seas.

In two minutes

Maritime zones are measured outward from the baseline and give the coastal State progressively weaker powers: sovereignty in the territorial sea (12 nm), policing powers in the contiguous zone (24 nm), sovereign resource rights in the exclusive economic zone (200 nm) and on the continental shelf, and none on the high seas.

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