international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

, national boundary delimitation (also known as national delimitation and boundary delimitation) is the process of legally establishing the outer limits ("

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

s") of a state within which full territorial or functional

sovereignty Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within a state as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate au ...

is exercised. National delimitation involves negotiations surrounding the modification of a state's borders and often takes place as part of the negotiations seeking to end a conflict over resource control, popular loyalties, or political interests. Occasionally this is used when referring to the

maritime boundaries A maritime boundary is a conceptual division of Earth's water surface areas using physical geography, physiographical or human geography, geopolitical criteria. As such, it usually bounds areas of exclusive sovereignty, national rights over mine ...

, in which case it is called maritime delimitation. The term "maritime delimitation" is a form of national delimitation that can be applied to the disputes between nations over maritime claims. An example is found at Maritime Boundary Delimitation in the

Gulf of Tonkin The Gulf of Tonkin is a gulf at the northwestern portion of the South China Sea, located off the coasts of Tonkin ( northern Vietnam) and South China. It has a total surface area of . It is defined in the west and northwest by the northern co ...

. In international politics, the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea ( Office of Legal Affairs,

United Nations Secretariat The United Nations Secretariat is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), The secretariat is the UN's executive arm. The secretariat has an important role in setting the agenda for the deliberative and decision-making bodi ...

) is responsible for the collection of all claims to territorial waters.

See also

References