As a result, the state does not simply exercise several sovereign rights on Territorial Waters, but its full sovereignty. Given that the Territorial Sea is a maritime zone onto which the coastal state projects its sovereignty, this maritime zone does not differ much from any continental land within the state. Hence, the sovereignty is absolute (it is exercised exclusively from a state and not from another state because in that instance the sovereignty would be partial). To make it simple, wherever the state has sovereignty over a territory, it can exercise its legislative, executive, and judicial powers. The contemporary notion of sovereignty, however, comes from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). Philosophers, such as Thomas Hobbes, the author of the Leviathan and Jean Jacque Rousseau, the author of the Social Contract have contributed to the essence of the definition of sovereignty inter alia.
The notion of sovereignty is of great importance and weight in International Relations, as well as in International Law, although admittedly it is not easy to define what exactly it means, especially when a word is either wrongly used or overused in public dialogue. It has already been said that a country does exercise its sovereignty in its territorial waters. What results in a violation of international law a state claiming a maritime area of sovereign waters beyond the 12 nautical miles from its coastline 3, regardless of ratifying UNCLOS.īefore further elaborating on the details regarding the Territorial sea and the Greco-Turkish confrontation on the matter, it is important to note a certain fact. To add to that, even when a state has not signed the UNCLOS, the law still should be in power, as the 12 nautical miles law also constitutes part of customary international law. This is a sovereign right that can be exercised by the state unilaterally, meaning that the state does not need the consent of any other nation to exercise this right. According to the first few articles of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982), a treaty that constitutes the cornerstone of the International Law of the Sea, the territorial sea of the state may have a maximum width of 12 nautical miles 2. Having said that, the width of the two zones, the territorial sea and the airspace must be the same. This sovereignty is wide enough to cover, sea, the bottom of the sea and seabed, and even the aerial space, which constitutes a different zone, the National Airspace 1. The two terms are interchangeable and do express, in essence the same thing. The Territorial Sea, also known as Territorial Waters, constitutes a zone of sovereignty of a coastal state.
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