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The legal issue of the military and reconnaissance activities in EEZ and its above airspace is a complicated issue but a simple issue also.
This issue is complicated because these activities are conducted in the sea area called the EEZ and its air space. Thereupon, proceeding from consideration of the national interests of their own, officials and scholars from various countries connect it with the EEZ regime, or put it into the EEZ regime, and tried hard to search out favorable legal basis to support their own positions from the present regime. However, as its name indicates, the present EEZ regime mainly focuses on maritime resources and their distribution. It’s true that there are some general legal principles about peaceful use of the part of sea, but there are no concrete legal principles governing the military use of the EEZ. Therefore, within the scope of the regime, no matter how hard we tried to search, it comes out that the legal issue of the military uses of the EEZ becomes more and more complicated.
The legal issue aroused from the military and reconnaissance activities in EEZ and its airspace is a simple issue. We say so only because of the following facts:
——The key point of this issue is not the EEZ regime itself, but the military and reconnaissance activities in this part of the sea and its air space. Are these activities accord with the international law? Are these activities accord with general international laws and regulations recognized by the international community? If so, it could be legally conducted there; What If not, such activities should be prohibited.
——Another key point of this issue is whether the traditional high sea freedom of navigation and overflight equates freedom of military and reconnaissance activities in the offshore area and its air space of the coastal states no matter whether these activities are against the coastal states or not. We don’t think they are equal to each other, and we also believe that many other states which include those who conducted and are still conducting such activities, are sharing the same position with us.
——This issue has another important point, that is, whether the present EEZ regime has laid certain restrictions on the freedom of navigation and overflight of foreign military vessels and aircraft in this area. Our answer is yes. The present EEZ regime does not necessarily restricted the freedom of navigation and overflight of foreign vessels and aircraft in this area and its above air space, but it certainly gives the international community a clear statement which can be simplified as “the freedom of navigation and overflight in the EEZ should not be the freedom of conducting military and reconnaissance activities in the same maritime and air space”.
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