ABSTRACT
The navigational rights, freedoms and interests of all States beyond their own national territories encompass both maritime and aerial domains. The US considers the navigation and overflight regimes established by United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for the territorial sea, contiguous zone, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf, and high seas as representing an agreed and acceptable balance of rights and freedoms between coastal states and user states. China's policies on freedom of navigation and overflight have been officially articulated in more detail relatively recently, but is complicated by the fact that it has done so in connection with the ongoing disputes in the South China Sea. China highlights the exclusive sovereign rights of a coastal state in its EEZ, and considers foreign military activities such as those conducted by the US to be in derogation of the coastal states' exclusive sovereign rights and therefore inherently illegal.
