Townsend-Gault, Ian --- "Rationales for zones of co-operation" [2013] ELECD 761; in Beckman, Robert; Townsend-Gault, Ian; Schofield, Clive; Davenport, Tara; Bernard, Leonardo (eds), "Beyond Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) 114

Book Title: Beyond Territorial Disputes in the South China Sea

Editor(s): Beckman, Robert; Townsend-Gault, Ian; Schofield, Clive; Davenport, Tara; Bernard, Leonardo

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781955932

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Rationales for zones of co-operation

Author(s): Townsend-Gault, Ian

Number of pages: 25

Abstract/Description:

A maritime ‘zone of co-operation’ is the omnibus term used to describe an area, created by two or more States according to an infinite number of criteria or considerations, within which the usual rules of unilateral jurisdiction relating to the exercise of rights and the discharge of obligations over ocean activities are replaced by a regime where these rights and responsibilities are exercised jointly in some way. The zone of co-operation designed to facilitate natural resource exploration and exploitation is therefore as much a part of the legal and policy regime as a petroleum law or fisheries law, and recognition of this often forgotten reality should never be overlooked. There are multiple and various examples of zones of co-operation, but the outstanding example of the zone of co-operation that governs offshore petroleum joint development is the focus of the present volume. Nonetheless, just as joint development can take many forms, contemporary state practice continues to evolve different examples of zonal co-operation. The zone within which the special regime applies is usually constituted by the area where the claims to maritime jurisdiction made by the parties overlap with one another. That said, co-operation zones need not be ‘created’ by States through their conflicting maritime jurisdictional claims but may instead be dictated by the presence of marine features such as enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, large marine ecosystems and the like: zones which are the product of the natural world, not human choice, activity or, indeed, discord.