Status of Maritime, Airspace and Military with Indian Perspective: A Legal Analysis

Abstract

Maritime control, the sovereignty of the airspace and the military operations are considered one of the biggest and the most rapidly developing sectors of international law. The ownership and utilization of oceans and airspace have invariably taken center stage in matters of national security, economic progress and geopolitical balance due to the globalization, strategic rivalry and the swift technological enhancement.
The law of the seas used to be founded on the idea of mare liberum (freedom of the seas) and it permitted to navigate freely on the seas that were located beyond the territorial waters. But as the struggle intensified among the powers over the seas and maritime national interests, this precept rapidly became a more formal legal system. The codification of maritime spaces by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 1982 was a breakthrough in maritime zone regulation as well as balancing between the sovereignty of the state and the global commons. 1 just as airspace is governed by the absolute sovereignty doctrine of the Chicago Convention, 1944, granting states the exclusive control over the airspace above its territory.2