对“专属经济区军事和情报搜集活动指导原则”的评价
Commentary on Guidelines for Military and Intelligence Gathering Activities in the EEZ--Freedom of navigation and over-flight does not equal to freedom of military and intelligence gathering
Ren Xiaofeng
【摘要】2003年12月，美国东西方研究中心和日本海洋政策研究会在夏威夷举办了“专属经济区21名人小组会议”，会议讨论了印尼学者贾拉尔提交的“专属经济区军事和情报搜集活动指导原则”。本文系作者在会议上的发言。
【关键词】海洋法、专属经济区、海洋军事利用
【全文】
Dr.Ren Xiaofeng,Research Fellows, CIISS, China
(All views and standpoints in the article are the authors` only)
General commentary
One of the most important accomplishments of UNCLOS is that it has creatively established the regime of the exclusive economic zone, therefore making the vast offshore areas of the world ocean as “private plots” of the coastal states, where they can exclusively explore and exploite the natural resources of that part of the ocean, thereby, the regime of EEZ reasonable distributed the marine natural resources between the ocean powers and the coastal states and made a relatively stable order. However, in the course of implementation of this regime, a series of new issues have come up, for example, EEZ delimitation, law enforcement, marine management, etc. Among those, A quite complicated issue is the legal issue aroused from the military and intelligence gathering activities in “EEZ” by non-coastal states. The issues of whether this kind of activities should be allowed or prohibited in the area and what are their legal reasons are remain unresolved. Furthermore, as the major sea powers, especially some big sea-powers, conducting more and more such kind of activities in the EEZ of other states, the issues have become more complicated.
The legal issues aroused from the military activities especially the naval and air reconnaissance activities conducted by foreign military vessels and aircraft in the sea areas under the jurisdiction of the coastal states is an old issue but a new one also. It is an old issue because it was already discussed during the third UN Conference On The Law Of The Sea in the last century. At that time “the cold war” was continuing between the United States and the Soviet Union and their military alliance, and because of that, the concerned legal issues were not fully discussed and finally been laid aside. It is a new issue firstly because of the new regime of EEZ, which has now been established and universally accepted. Many military activities once conducted on the high seas and its above airspace in the past are being considered now as conducted in the EEZ. Secondly, with the advancement of the modern naval weapons and equipment and the enhancement of electronic communication and reconnaissance capability, many of those military and reconnaissance activities once only could be conducted in the territorial waters and airspace of the coastal states can be done in the EEZ. Comparatively speaking the military activities now are being conducted much far away from the coast of the coastal states than the past, but the coming result and the influence of them upon the target coastal state are of no difference from the traditional reconnaissance activities at close quarters of the coastal states. Therefore, so far as the EEZ regime is concerned, it seems that the legal issue aroused from these activities becomes a new one.
