ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the legal concepts relevant to a discussion of national sea boundaries in the Mediterranean in some detail, and takes the 1958 Conventions as the historical starting-point. Before the particular problems of national sea boundaries in the Mediterranean can be discussed, it is necessary to explain briefly the general background to the international law of the sea. The 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas provides for the legal status of “all parts of the sea that are not included in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State”. The status of the provisions regarding the exclusive economic zone is not beyond argument, although there is probably enough state practice to regard the zone as now established as a lawful extension of a coastal state’s jurisdiction. In the Tunisia/Libya Case, both parties relied on economic factors as relevant to the delimitation process.
