Marine Resources Assessment for the Marianas Operating ... - SPREP

AUGUST 2005 FINAL REPORT
Figure 5-1. A 3-D depiction of the U.S. maritime boundaries. Tidal datums – Mean Higher High
Water (MHHW), Mean High Water (MHW), Mean Low Water (MLW), and Mean Lower Low Water
(MLLW). Image taken from: NOAA (2002), used with the permission of Mr. David Stein.
U.S. sovereign rights over the natural resources within the 200 NM zone, but it did not affect the lawful
use of this zone by other nations for navigation or overflight (DOALOS 2004; Table 5-2). Sovereign rights
include the rights to explore, exploit, conserve, and manage natural resources.
The U.S. EEZ covers approximately 7.8 million km 2 of ocean space, half of which is found in the western
Pacific Ocean around U.S. possessions such as Hawai’i, American Samoa, Guam, and the CNMI.
Overlapping boundaries with other nations exist in 25 situations. International maritime boundaries are
those agreed upon by one or more countries to resolve these overlapping claim issues. In cases where a
nation’s 200 NM EEZ overlaps with that of another country, both country’s EEZs are deemed to end at
what is called the “median line," an imaginary line that is equidistant from the baseline of each country.
Around Guam and the CNMI, two cases exist where the EEZs of two separate nations overlap. To the
south of Guam, the U.S. EEZ runs along the median line between Guam and the Federated States of
Micronesia (FSM), while to the north of Farallon de Pajaros, the U.S. EEZ runs along the median line
between the CNMI and Japan’s Ogasawara Islands.
The U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty, created in 1982 and entered into force in 1994, delimited the
international maritime sovereignties of coastal nations as 12 NM for territorial seas, 18 to 24 NM for a
contiguous zone, and 200 NM for an EEZ (54 FR 777). While the U.S. has not yet signed the Law of the
5-2