thanx for these & your other comments peter
all good points
12nm from coasts & baselines as claimed should probably be the standard
i agree
rather than simply 12nm from coasts
& tho i have found several close calls
i am not yet aware of any cases that will hinge on these extra nuances
but it will be fun to see if we can find any that are so odd as to do so
not sure what if anything any claim to the legal status of archipelagic
state will do to our counts
tho perhaps you can follow up on this
but it is also a good opportunity for me to hedge further my
characterization of australia as technically archipelagic
since it is not fully surrounded by high seas but has territorial seas
which abut the territorial seas of another country
namely papua
& we dont need any extra confusion
perhaps for clave census purposes tho
we will need only to figure out if insular patches are fully embedded in
high seas or not
& thus we might hope to sidestep all further questions of archipelagicity
m
ps
yes score 1 more for macquarie
& do keep an eye out for others
since all these totals are still very rough
>
>In this story the figure 12 nautical miles is constantly mentioned,
>but I think it has to be mentioned too that this is not just 12 nm
>from the coast line; it is from the base line, and this base line
>could be different (cutting off of bays, river mouths, etc.) Also the
>claimed status of archipelagic country plays a role here, too. I
>don't know whether there are, anywhere in the world, enclaved bits of
>high sea within a single entity of territorial waters (i.e. belonging
>to one country), but they seem very unlikely to me. On the other
>hand, these things _can_ happen with regards to the 200 nm limit,
>with EEZ's. One example is the so-called "peanut hole" in the Sea of
>Okhotsk.
>
>And I don't know whether Ceuta and mainland Spain are linked through
>Spanish territorial waters, just because they are less than 24 nm
>apart. This is the Gibraltar strait, after all, and because it is a
>very important strait, there might be other rules applied here.
>Perhaps I'm seeing problems where there aren't any. Anyway, free
>passing of ships should be assured somehow (which is the case in
>terr. waters anyway, as I recall), but perhaps some special status is
>given to these important straits. There are definitely such
>regulations for the all-Turkish Bosporus and Dardanelles. Does anyone
>know anything more on this subject?
>
>Peter S.