The Exclusive Economic Zone

The UN has not only been influential in maintaining global peace and security 

but also in implementing legal mechanism that controls the seas. The role it 

plays in the progressive development of the law of the sea is, without a doubt, 

significant. The highlight of this important work comes under the guidance of 

the Third UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which essentially 

defines the two-hundred-mile limits of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).  

The background of the two-hundred-mile EEZ can be found in the unilat- 

eral actions that South American nations implemented to protect exclusive 

claims to natural resources off their shoreline. 1 These claims covered not only 

the underlying seabed, but also pertinent natural resources in the seabed as 

well. The concept of the EEZ was further shaped by UNCLOS III and Articles 

45–61 of the Informal Single Negotiating Text (ISNT) appended to the Second 

Substantive Session of UNCLOS III. 2 The revised Single Negotiating Text asso- 

ciated with the 1976 New York sessions clarified and reformulated the provi- 

sions set forth in Articles 45–61 of the ISNT . 3 The standards associated with 

the EEZ were reproduced in the informal composite negotiating text (ICNT), 

the 198 Draft Convention, and in the Law of the Sea (LOS) Convention.