The Great Tuna Boat Chase and Massacre Case has Ecuador claiming that the United States is in violation of its 200-mile territorial sea. From it’s inception, Ecuador had accepted the customary three mile limit as the demarcation of its territorial waters. However, after 130 years, Juan Valdez achieved power in 1952. Under his regime, he proclaimed that the three mile boundary was never meant to be considered a fixed and unalterable boundary, and that historical practices as well as the natural features of the area justified a 200-mile territorial sea. Each Ecuadorian president since Valdez claimed this as well.
Under the UN 1982 treaty, a state’s territorial sea extends twelve nautical miles from the national coastline (Slomanson 305). Within this area, Ecuador exercises its sovereignty over these waters as if it were a landmass (Slomanson 305). All aspects of the sea are under its control, including the seabed and airspace. Furthermore, Ecuador is allowed to impose laws that regulate the territory and consume resources that lie inside this defined area. Within this territorial sea, Ecuador “must exercise its sovereign power in this adjacent strip of water” (Slomanson 305). Additionally, Ecuador is expected to chart this water and to provide warning of navigational hazards (Slomanson 305). However, Ecuador did not act upon this and was “lax in enforcing it”. In 1951, the International Court of Justice issued this statement in response to a ruling:
“To every State whose land territory is at any place washed by the sea, international law attaches a corresponding portion of maritime territory consisting of what the law calls territorial waters... No maritime States can refuse them. International law imposes upon a m...
... middle of paper ...
... laws governing the activities of foreign states in its EEZ. Ecuador’s blatant violation demonstrates their lack of respect for UN law. Donald Thomas was simply conducting his business to preserve his quality of life and his rights were infringed upon. To allow this case to go unresolved endangers the livelihood of many more fishermen. Ruling in favor of Ecuador would set a precedent that has far-reaching consequences: Exclusive Economic Zones are territorial waters. As a result, rights would be granted to States in their territorial waters that were not intended to be by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The violence exhibited by the Ecuadorian navy shows a lack of restraint parallel to the actions of rogue nations. The United States continues to insist that Ecuador did not meet the customary international standard in handling this situation.
United Nations , "United Nations and Convention on the Law of the Sea:Division for Ocean Affairs and the LAw of the Sea." Accessed November 27, 2013. http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/UNCLOS-TOC.htm.
Schneider, Jan. "The Gulf of Maine Case: The Nature of an Equitable Result." American Journal of International Law 79:3 (July 1985): 539-577.
In February 1998, Watertown, SD, was not bursting with riveting activity. Watertown had a population of 20,127 people in 1998, which is not much less than the 22,000 residents it has today. Brenda Barger was mayor of Watertown, SD, during the years of some of the worst flooding ever in Watertown. Although the little town of Watertown seems like the perfect rural town to raise a family, it’s not all butterflies and rainbows. On February 1, it was reported that two teenage girls were accused of beating a 47 year-old man to death in his home. David Paul Bauman died of a head injury caused by the girls. Bauman was currently unemployed and mildly disabled due to a car accident a number of years earlier (“2 Teen-agers Arrested in Watertown Killing”
...ield, James Blaine was no longer Secretary of State and Trescott –in representation of US government- had to sign the protocol of Viña del Mar (February 1882) accepting “the Chilean principle that peace depended on territorial transfer” from Peru. Chile had imposed its conditions and -as Heraldo Muñoz says- the United States “lost prestige in Chile due to its behavior in the War of the Pacific.”
Will there ever be a limit as to how many and which type of animals can be killed for consumption by humans? Many will be surprised at the variety of exotic foods that exist around the world such as giraffe, camel, worms, scorpions, and other insects. Dolphin and whale meat is widely enjoyed in Japan especially in the small town of Taiji, Japan where a big secret has been kept for a very long time. There are many changes that can be and need to be made in this big world of ours, but it is not just our world. We share the earth with many great creatures and animals, including dolphins. That is why one of the most important changes that needs to be made in this world is the cease of brutally massacring of dolphins and consumption
For the past 200 years, Colombia and Nicaragua have been disputing ownership over the maritime border near San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina. After originally being under Colombian control, the ICJ extended Nicaragua’s maritime borders. However, Nicaragua’s intentions are purely economic while Colombia’s are more vested in the culture and wellbeing of both the natives and the environment. Therefore, the ICJ should return the maritime sovereignty to Colombia.
In the Huaorani case the government of Ecuador does the exact opposite. It does not only ignore the plight of the natives but also it is first in line to push for the invasion of their land. The government depends on oil mining for almost half of its revenue hence it has outlawed any attempt by the Huaorani to obstruct the oil companies. It is ironic that the government does not plan to share the projected revenue of two billion dollars with the natives. Under the Ecuadorian law, the state retains all the subsurface mineral rights (Kane, 1993,
Zacher, Mark W. “The Territorial Integrity Norm: International Boundaries and the Use of Force.” International Organization. Vol. 55, No. 2 (Spring 2001), 215-250.
Immediately following the war with Spain, the United States had both the political will to pursue imperial policies and the geopolitical circumstances conducive to doing so. But the way in which these policies would manifest was an open question; was the impulse to actively remake the world in America’s Anglo-Saxon image justified? Hence, there were several models of American imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. In the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Samoa, the United States asserted unwavering political control. In Cuba, and later throughout most of the Caribbean basin, the economic and political domination of customarily sovereign governments became the policy. Ultimately, the United States was able to expand its territory
Laver, R. C. (2001). The Falklands/Malvinas Case: Breaking the Deadlock in the Anglo-Argentine Sovereignty Dispute. Developments in International Law , 40, 66-71.
Olney, Richard. On American Jurisdiction in the Western Hemisphere. U.S., Department of State, Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, 1895, I, pp. 545-562.
According to Article 38 of the 1946 Statute of the International Court of Justice, the Court shall apply “international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law” in its decisions (Kritsiotis 123). In other words, the International Court of Justice cites customs as a formal source of law. According to Roberto Unger, author of Law in a Modern Society, customary international law is best defined as “any recurring mode of interaction among individuals and groups, together with the more or less explicit acknowledgement of these groups and individuals that such patterns of interaction produce reciprocal expectations of conduct that out to be satisfied (Shaw 72-73). In other words, customary international laws are primarily concerned with how and why sates behave in a particular manner. Customs derive from the behavior of states (state practice) and the subconscious belief that a behavior is inherently legal (opinio juris). Evidence of state behavior is documented in the decisions of domestic courts, international courts, and international organizations. Unlike treaty law, customary laws are binding on all states. Additionally, if a treaty derives from a custom it is also binding on all states. Some of the international court cases that have been instrumental in the development of customary international law include the Nicaragua v. United States case, the Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries case, the Scotia case, the Asylum case, the Paquete Habana case, and the Lotus case.
On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world's two largest oceans, and firmly positioned the U.S. as the next global superpower. American ingenuity and innovation had succeeded where, 15 years earlier, the French had failed disastrously. The U.S. however, paid a cost normally associated with a pyrrhic victory; a decade of ceaseless, grinding toil, an outlay of more than 350 million dollars (the largest single federal expenditure in history to that time), and the loss of more than 5,000 lives. Central America also witnessed the brazen overthrow of a sovereign government, the influx of over 55,000 workers from around the globe, the removal of hundreds of millions of tons of earth, and engineering innovation on an unprecedented scale. The construction of the Canal was the epitome of man's mastery over nature. The result of it completion however meant for the first time there was an international waterway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, via the Caribbean Ocean. This route simplified the passage of ships between these two bodies of water, by cutting across the Isthmus of Panama. ...
The first article, entitled “National Constitutional Compatibility and the International Criminal Court”, is written by Helen Duffy and published in the Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law. The second article, entitled “Reasonable Doubt: The Case against the Proposed International Criminal Court”, is written by Gary T. Dempsey and published online at the Cato Institute website. Duffy’s article was published late in 2001, a contrast to Dempsey’s article which was published in 1998, just one day prior to the International Rome conference on July 17th that resulted in the establishment of the ICC. Many of the incongruencies in the ICC treaty that troubled Americans three years ago have yet to be brought into balance with American values. These two papers give similar, although at times slightly different, viewpoints on the issue.
Before we delve deeper into this topic, it is imperative to properly provide a definition of sovereignty and lay down some foundation on this topic. There are four different definitions of sovereignty – international legal sovereignty, Westphalia sovereignty, domestic sovereignty and interdependence sovereignty. International legal sovereignty deals with “the practices associated with mutual recognition, usually between territorial entities that have formal juridical independence” (Krasner 4). The main definition of sovereignty that this paper will use is the ...