By Margaret K. Lewis
So far, there’s been no repeat of the 2001 collision. But with tensions rising, some understanding is needed.
The already tense atmosphere in the East China Sea ratcheted up a notch this past week when China declared a new air defense identification zone. The United States’ flight of a pair of B-52 bombers through that zone on Monday further highlighted the potential for conflict in the contested area. The legal issues involved in the use of the sea, and the air space above it, are intellectually intriguing for an academic who studies international law. The political realities of this increasingly tough neighborhood, however, are frightening.
From a legal perspective, the situation in the East China Sea is complicated first by conflicting territorial claims with deep historic roots. Both China and Japan claim ownership to the Senakau/Diaoyu islands, with the choice of name depending on your position regarding ownership. Even if ownership was clear, there is the further question
of what rights a country has in the space surrounding its territory. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which China and Japan are both parties, waters off a state’s coastline are divided into several zones – territorial sea, contiguous zone and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) – over which the coastal state is authorized to exercise diminishing control. The legal norms governing these zones are fundamental to determining states’ rights to operate aircraft above them. Not surprisingly, countries have differing interpretations of the legal norms, depending in part on their abilities to project military capabilities into other states’ EEZs.
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