According to the

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. , 167 ...

, a nation's internal waters include waters on the side of the baseline of a nation's

territorial waters The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potent ...

that is facing toward the land, except in

archipelagic state An archipelagic state is an island country that consists of an archipelago. The designation is legally defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In various conferences, The Bahamas, Fiji, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea ...

s.UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Part II, Article 8 ''Internal waters''
/ref> It includes waterways such as rivers and canals, and sometimes the water within small

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

s. In

inland waters According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a nation's internal waters include waters on the side of the baseline of a nation's territorial waters that is facing toward the land, except in archipelagic states. It includes wa ...

, sovereignty of the state is equal to that which it exercises on the mainland. The coastal state is free to make laws relating to its internal waters, regulate any use, and use any resource. In the absence of agreements to the contrary, foreign vessels have no right of passage within internal waters, and this lack of right to innocent passage is the key difference between internal waters and territorial waters.UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Part II, Article 2 The "archipelagic waters" within the outermost islands of archipelagic states are treated as internal waters with the exception that innocent passage must be allowed, although the archipelagic state may designate certain sea lanes in these waters. When a foreign vessel is authorized to enter inland waters, it is subject to the laws of the coastal state, with one exception: the crew of the ship is subject to the law of the

flag state The flag state of a merchant vessel is the jurisdiction under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed, and is deemed the nationality of the vessel. A merchant vessel must be registered and can only be registered in one jurisdiction, but ma ...

. This extends to labor conditions as well as to crimes committed on board the ship, even if docked at a port. Offences committed in the harbor and the crimes committed there by the crew of a foreign vessel always fall in the jurisdiction of the coastal state. The coastal state can intervene in ship affairs when the master of the vessel requires intervention of the local authorities, when there is danger to the peace and security of the coastal state, or to enforce customs rules.

Disputes

The claim by one state of a waterway as internal waters has led to disputes with other states. For example,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

claims a section of the

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the ...

as part of its internal waters, fully under Canadian jurisdiction, a claim which has been disputed by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and most maritime nations, which consider them to be an international strait, which means that foreign vessels have a right of

transit passage Transit passage is a concept of the law of the sea, which allows a vessel or aircraft the freedom of navigation or overflight solely for the purpose of continuous and expeditious transit of a strait between one part of the high seas or exclusiv ...

. (See Canadian Internal Waters and .) The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which was formed in 1994, has the power to settle maritime disputes between party states, although in practice, these resolutions depend on the willingness of these states to adhere to the rulings.

References

Sources

UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
Hydrography Law of the sea {{International-law-stub

Disputes

See also

References

Sources