Peter:
> it would be interesting to know which countries have
> claimed what areas beyond the 200 nm, and which countries have
> actually concluded treaties amongst themselves (disregarding every
> other nation involved, as it previously was "everyones land"), and
> are now in possession (only recognised by the treaty counterpart,
to
> be sure) of a chunk of EEZ outside the 200 nm.
A couple of these continental shelf boundaries show up on the map at
www.maritimeboundaries.com.
The old 1867 treaty line between Russia and the USA cuts across the
Bering Sea beyond the 200nm limit for some distance the USA now
uses the old treaty line (in the Bering Sea, not in the Arctic Ocean)
as its continental shelf limit, although Russia has not specifically
ratified that.
Another seabed treaty, this time bilaterally agreed, is between New
Caledonia and Australia. It shows up on the maritime boundaries map
as a "multilateral agreement" orange line to the south of New
Caledonia, apparently bordering on the high seas between Australia
and New Zealand. That segment lies beyond any possible 200nm limit
for New Caledonia, and in fact refers to a seabed demarkation line.
> And I am still wondering about the "box" boundary around
> Spitsbergen, and a similar structure around the Seychelles.
The rectangle surrounding Svalbard dates from 1920, when Norway was
assigned "full sovereignty" over all islands "great or small and
rocks appertaining thereto" between meridians 10 to 35 east and
parallels 74 to 81 north. An improbable 49 states, including Russia,
have now signed up to this the reason being that the treaty allows
signatories to hunt and fish within that area, as well as promising
equality of access for mining and industry (shudder). The other
orange-demarkated area to the SE of the Svalbard zone on the martime
boundaries map is a shared fishing zone agreed between Russia and
Norway.
I didn't know about a Seychelles rectangle. Do you maybe mean the one
around the Maldives? The Maldives haven't defined archipelagic
baselines, but instead have claimed all land and sea between a pair
of meridians and a pair of parallels. Then they've built a
rectangular 200nm EEZ around that (except in the north, where they
have a treaty with India). The result of this cheeky rectangle is
that the southern corners are a not-very-defensible (root 2) x 200nm
from the core Maldivian claim. This overlaps the 200nm Exclusive
Fishing Zone claimed around the British Indian Ocean Territory, but
I'm not aware of any gunboats being sent out yet ...
Grant