Last edited Mon May 6, 2019, 07:55 PM - Edit history (1)
There basically is no provision for the sort of territorial claim the Chinese make in that respect. However, the US statement that the claim was "excessive" seems interesting. Does that mean a lesser claim say to 6 or 8 miles would be respected?
The absence of the law in this area is due to the claims being unprecedented, in terms of the size and scope of the artificial islands and basically being beyond the eez or continental shelf limits. So wouldn't it be more reasonable to reach some sort of accommodation for purposes of avoiding incidents, like incidents at sea agreements?
There are other territorial claims that are being conflated with the 12 mile limit claim. First is that other states claim the territory. Another aspect are the presence of economic zone claims. Islands or shoals that did not independently support a community don't give rise to the economic zone claim. The fact that one came in later and made an island capable supporting a community shouldn't give rise to a related economic zone claim.
If one were to grant a six mile limit for artificial islands of this nature, without deciding the the other national territorial claims, does that really substantially affect freedom of navigation? I don't think so. What the US is really concerned about is the expansion of Chinese military power. I don't think much can be done about that short of war. Better to negotiate from a pragmatic standpoint. You could say that the agreements were temporary, of a non-precedential nature while other aspects of the issues are limited by negotiations on a more permanent basis.
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