I guess I feel unhappy with using the 12nm limit, simply because it
does chop up island groups that *feel* contiguous - Michael's 14 bits
of the Coral Sea Island Territory for instance, or the several bits
of the Hawaiian chain. I realise that 12nm is being used because its
the nearest maritime equivalent to land sovereignty, but even this
coastal area is not "sovereign" in the way land territories are -
countries are obliged to allow reasonable through-going traffic
within the 12-mile limit, for instance, whereas the same does not
apply on land.
So maybe we could choose some other coastal limit that does less
violence to the idea of contiguous island territories? For me, the
200nm EEZ does the job better, linking islands into natural groupings
with parent territories and each other, and making exclaves of only
those that are quite markedly "cut off" from parent territory by
sheer distance or by intervening nations. To see how the world looks
with this sort of maritime 'clave definition, take a look at the map
here:

http://www.maritimeboundaries.com/

This looks good to me - fewer pointless (my view!) claves, and some
maritime tripoints by way of compensation.
Anyone agree?

BTW, for short descriptions of what the various coastal zones imply
see:

http://www.auslig.gov.au/marbound/ambisbig.htm

which also has a nice map of Australia with the various zones marked
in to compare and contrast.

Grant