I saw an article about China and its claims over the entire South China Sea and ensuing aggression despite some legal ruling that it is international waters. What organization gets to rule on these matters for the world?
You don’t really see the boundaries for example on Google Maps of the borders of the country in the water that they might consider their own territory. They exist anyway and the respective countries have regular patrols of what they understand to be their waters. I think the term, ‘economic zone’, was used also in the article to define the boundary in the water. What does that mean? Thank you in advance for your time.
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All boarders are set by treaties between the two countries, even in the ocean. There are however some recommended guidelines for how to do this. The UNCLOS treaty say that as a starting point for negotiations the boarders should be in the middle between the closest natural land controlled by the two countries.
The issues in the South China Sea is that there is a few islands which are naturally too small to be inhabited. They even sometimes submerge. So the countries do not agree on who owns them or if they are even to be considered land.
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