Vol. 29 (2022)
Research

The legal status of islands in international law: an interpretation of article 121 of UNCLOS

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  • Francisco Lertora Pinto
Francisco Lertora Pinto
Universidad de Chile.
Bio

Published 2022-09-26

Keywords

  • international organizations,
  • international privileges,
  • principles of international law,
  • conflict resolution

Copyright (c) 2022 Francisco Lertora Pinto

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Lertora Pinto, F. (2022). The legal status of islands in international law: an interpretation of article 121 of UNCLOS. Revista De Derecho (Coquimbo. En línea), 29, e4299. https://doi.org/10.22199/issn.0718-9753-4299

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 established in Article 121 the legal status of islands. Article 121, paragraphs 1 and 2, are part of customary international law because it repeats the provisions of the Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone of 1958, but paragraph 3 of Article 121 introduced a new differentiation between islands and rocks. According to paragraph 3, the rocks do not produce full maritime spaces, with the exception of the territorial sea and the contiguous zone. Therefore, this implies a restriction to States with island territories in the extension of their claims for maritime spaces, including the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf and the extended continental shelf. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Article 121, especially the difference between islands and rocks, the contribution of the jurisprudence on the matter and its implications in international law.

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