ABSTRACT
acquisition of territory discussed in Chapter 6 may be relevant. The general rules applying to baselines will apply to islands and this clearly poses no problems in the case of large islands such as Britain. With the development of the regimes of the continental shelf and EEZ the significance of small islands vastly increased. It is accepted that every island, no matter how small, is capable of possessing a territorial sea but doubts have been expressed as to whether small islands have continental shelves or EEZs. Article 121(2) of the LOSC provides that islands will possess baselines for all maritime zones, but an exception is made in the case of rocks which are incapable of sustaining human habitation or economic life of their own. Such islands can only serve as the baseline for the territorial sea and contiguous zone and not for the continental shelf and EEZ. In practice most uninhabitable island rocks lie immediately offshore and will be dealt with under the provisions relating to straight baselines and archipelagic states. Regimes applying to rocks which lie a long way offshore, such as Rockall which lies 240 miles west of the Outer Hebrides, tend to be or have been the subject of specific agreement or dispute resolution.
