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Innocent Passage and the 1982 Convention: The Influence of Soviet Law and Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

W. E. Butler
W. E. Butler*
Affiliation:
Harvard Law School; University of London; University College London
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Extract

On April 28, 1983, the Soviet Union became the first maritime country of consequence and the largest sea power signatory to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to enact legislation implementing the provisions of that instrument regulating the innocent passage of foreign warships. The stature of the Soviet Union within the framework of the Convention and the policy changes embodied in the 1983 legislation confer a special importance on these new Rules, whose text and interpretation will become a standard emulated by other countries. The present article examines the text of the Rules against the background of previous Soviet legislation, the 1982 Convention and its negotiating history, and the application of the Rules.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 81 , Issue 2 , April 1987 , pp. 331 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1987

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References

1 Opened for signature Dec. 10, 1982, reprinted in United Nations, The Law of the Sea: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UN Pub. Sales No. E.83.V.5).

2 For the Rules, see note 28 infra.

3 Butler, W. E., The Law of Soviet Territorial Waters (1967)Google Scholar; The Soviet Union and the Law of the Sea (1971); Northeast Arctic Passage (1978); and others. See also The USSR, Eastern Europe, and the Development of the Law of the Sea (Butler, W. E. ed. 1983–)Google Scholar.

4 Zakonodatel’stvo I Mezhdunarodnye Dogovory Soiuza SSR I Soiuznykh Respublik O Pravovom Polozhenh Inostrannykh Fizicheskikh I Iuridicheskikh Lits 432 (Egor’ev, V. V. et al. comps., 1926)Google Scholar, translated in 6 Soviet Statutes and Decisions [hereinafter cited as SS&D] 58 (1969).

5 SZ SSSR [Sobranie Zakonov I Rasporiazhenii Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik], No. 62, 1927, item 625, translated in 6 SS&D at 30.

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15 Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, Apr. 29, 1958, 15 UST 1606, TIAS No. 5639, 516 UNTS 205.

16 Vedomosti SSSR, No. 43, 1964, item 472, translated in 6 SS&D at 62.

17 Vedomosti SSSR, No. 34, 1960, item 324, translated in 6 SS&D at 63.

18 Izveshcheniia Moreplavateliam, No. 1, 1966, item 14, translated in 6 SS&D at 65.

19 Confirmed by the Ministry of Fisheries on Jan. 16, 1961. For the text, see Meshera, V. F., Normativnye dokumenty po morskomu pravu 133 (1965)Google Scholar, translated in 8ILM 333 (1969).

20 Butler, , The USSR and the Limits to National Jurisdiction over the Sea, 1970–72 in Limits to National Jurisdiction Over the Sea 177 (Yates, G. T. & Young, J. H. eds. 1974)Google Scholar.

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22 Reports of the United States Delegation to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea 95 (Nordquist, M. & Park, C. eds. 1983)Google Scholar.

23 Id.

24 Id. at 546–47.

25 Vedomosti SSSR, No. 48, 1982, item 891, translated in Butler (ed.), supra note 3, and in Collected Legislation of the USSR and Constituent Union Republics (Butler, ed. 1979–)Google Scholar.

26 The 1982 law uses “territorial waters” and “territorial sea” as synonyms to avoid confusion that might arise since both terms were employed in earlier legislation and perhaps to put to rest the nuances of the past that were associated with one term or the other.

27 Geographic coordinates fixing the points for straight baselines to be drawn off Soviet coasts in order to determine the breadth of the territorial sea, economic zone and continental shelf of the Soviet Union were confirmed by decree of the USSR Council of Ministers on Feb. 7, 1984 for the Pacific Ocean, Sea of Japan, Okhotsk Sea and Bering Sea, and on Jan. 15, 1985 for the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and northern Arctic Ocean. See [ Barabolia, P. D., in] Zakon soiuza sovetskikh sotsialisticheskikh respublik O gosudarstvennoi granitse SSSR: Politiko-pravovoi kommentarh 25 (1986)Google Scholar [hereinafter cited as Kommentarii].

28 Izveshcheniia Moreplavateliam, No. 1, 1984, item 15, at 79, translated in Butler (ed.). supra note 3.

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30 Kommentarii, supra note 27, at 49–50 (emphasis added). Yet strong as this statement seems, some Soviet jurists regard it as an attenuation of the doctrine of “absolute state sovereignty” as set out in doctrinal writings of the late 1940s in the USSR.

31 Pork, A. A., in Klimenko, B. M. & Pork, A. A., Territoriia I Granitsa SSSR 141 (1985)Google Scholar. In making this point, however, Pork slips into confusing internal waters with territorial waters.

32 Id. at 143.

33 Id.

34 Id. at 142–43. Pork argues that “in principle” innocent passage has been established for foreign warships only on condition of observing the traffic separation systems in the Baltic Sea, the Okhotsk Sea and the Sea of Japan, drawing on, but not citing, Article 12 of the 1983 Soviet Rules, supra note 28.

35 Kommentarii, supra note 27, at 53.

36 Gitsu, M. A., in Sovremennoe morskoe pravo i praktika ego primeneniia 40 (Barinova, I. I., Kiselev, V. A. & Fedorov, L. M. eds., 1985)Google Scholar; see also Boitsov, F. S., Ivanov, G. G. & Makovskii, A. L., Morskoe Pravo 36–38 (2d ed. 1985)Google Scholar.

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39 Lukashin, V., Flot proiavil vyderzhku Izvestiia, Mar. 23, 1986, at 3 Google Scholar, cols. 5–7 (interview of Admiral V. N. Chernavin).

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41 Lukashin, supra note 39.

42 V MID SSSR, Izvestiia, Mar. 19, 1986, at 4, col. 8.

43 Kremlin Protest on US Warships Adds to Superpower Tensions, The Times (London), Mar. 19, 1986, at 5, cols. 1–3.

44 Halloran, supra note 40.

45 Wilson, , Soviet Ships Shadowed U.S. Vessels’ Transit Wash. Post, Mar. 20, 1986, at A33, cols. 1–4Google Scholar.

46 Provokatsii VMS SShA, Izvestiia, Mar. 20, 1986, at 4, cols. 6–8. P. D. Barabolia, in characterizing the cruise of the two American warships as illegal, regarded the presence of missiles on the Yorktown as a threat of force under Article 19(2)(a) of the 1982 Convention, and also criticized the information-gathering activities of the mission. See Barabolia, K voprosu o mirnom prokhode cherez territorial’noe more (unpublished paper delivered to the 3d Anglo-Soviet Symposium on the Law of the Sea, Moscow, June 25, 1986).

47 Butler, , The Pueblo Crisis: Some Critical Reflections 63 ASIL Proc. 7 (1969)Google Scholar.

48 Walker, , Moscow Claims US Ships Were Spying The Times (London), Mar. 21, 1986, at 7, cols. 1–3Google Scholar.

49 Lukashin, supra note 39.

50 For a brief discussion of traffic separation systems, see Zenkin, , Ustanovlenie morskikh karidorov i sistem razdeleniia dvizheniia v Konventsii OON po morskomu pravu 1982 g. (pravovye aspekty) in 2 Sovetskii ezhegodnik morskogo prava 42 (1985)Google Scholar.

51 See supra note 19.