ABSTRACT
Interactions between adjacent and opposite States in the Mediterranean produce twenty-nine boundary contacts with different types of delimitations between the maritime jurisdictions, although there are only fifteen agreed boundaries, reflecting the conflict inherent in the delimitation of maritime areas. The implementation of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea III, which came into force in 1994, meant that the Mediterranean Sea could be regarded as an exception to the widespread process to extend jurisdictions that was initiated in the 1970s. The delimitations between the various jurisdictions in the Mediterranean have given rise to what could be called 'jurisdictional asymmetry' as a result of the heterogeneous legal regimes of the adjacent maritime areas: exclusive economic zones, fishing zones, fisheries protection zones and ecological protection zones. The overlying waters may be subject to the high seas regime if the corresponding coastal State has not declared jurisdictional rights over the waters lying outside its territorial sea.
