Islands do not have an automatic right to EEZ

Submitted by Mozere (United Kingdom), Feb 26, 2012 at 04:08

International maritime law on delimitation of continental shelf and EEZ is currently a work in progress,it is evolving.The convention makes provisions for special circumstances and endorses an equatable sharing of the resources.It has also evolved to take into account that the EEZ should reflect the proportionality of the lengths of the respective shorelines.

Hence the 1983 declaration by France who owns the islands,of 200mi EEZlimit for the St. Pierre and Miquelon islands 20km off the shores of Canada was challenged.In 1992 an arbitration panel awarded the islands only 25% of Frances original claim,thus the EEZ of the said islads is completely embedded in the Canadian EEZ.Similarly the Channel Islands EEZ does not extend for 200mi and is embedded in the French EEZ.

The Meis case is very similar to these cases above and can be used as legal precedents.In law substance always comes before form.If the form gives an unequitable and ridiculous outcome ie a continental mass with no continental shelf and a speck of land just off its shores with a huge continental shelf,no amount of sophistry will hide the injustice of it.In this case the law will justifiable be called an ass.

Finally in relation to the cold wars.how many Icelanders the British killed I do not know, probably none,but what I know is that the ancestors of the Icelanders, the Vikings did desecrate and level a lot of English churches, some may have been converted to pagan temples,many Britishers were kidnapped and sold on the slave markets never to see their homeland again,many were raped and killed,a lot lost their properties. Do the British carry on hating the nordic peoples? No is the short answer.

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