ABSTRACT
Generally speaking, private property rights end at the beach. Move across the tide line, and the ability to undertake any activity or use the marine space becomes a matter of jurisdiction and rights – a right of free navigation, a right to fish, a right in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to build installations or islands and exploit certain resources. The seas are an international arena in their entirety. Even the territorial sea, which grants almost complete sovereign rights to the adjacent state (innocent passage being the exception), is underpinned by international agreement and law, and with jurisdiction come responsibilities – a responsibility to manage, a responsibility to conserve and a responsibility to allow free access in the EEZ and innocent passage in the territorial sea. Ownership, at first sight, does not enter into the equation, but the emergence of actual or quasi-property rights at sea is challenging this assumption.
