Internal Waters

Internal Waters Definition

Internal waters may be defined as waters on the landward side of the baseline (“The Law of Sea”, Robin Rolf Churchill, ?Alan Vaughan Lowe, 1988), which is used for measuring the width of territorial waters. Internal waters refer to rivers, canals, and the water within small bays. In general, internal waters cover all of the waterways of a state.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

The Convention defines major terms of the Law of the Sea, such as internal waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone, etc. The United Nations convention sets also legal regimes of different zones and rights.

Which are included in internal waters?

In accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982:

• Ports;
• Waters between a shore and straight baselines, used to measure the breadth of the territorial waters;
• Internal seas, i.e. the seas surrounded by the land territory of one or several states;
• Bays (but see below)
• Historic waters, including historical bays irrespective of the width of the entrance.

Bays

There are only included bays with entrances not more than 24 nautical miles wide. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, when the entrance to a bay exceeds 24 nautical miles, a straight baseline shall be drawn within the bay in such a manner as to enclose the maximum area of water that is possible with a line of that length.

However, this limitation does not apply to so-called “historic” bays (when the use is of particular significance). Three factors serve, in the Convention, as the basis for including bays and other “historic” waters in internal waters:

• Sovereignty has been claimed by the coastal country for a long period of time;
• The bay is of important economic, defensive and strategic significance to the coastal state;
• The majority of countries have implied recognition of the bay as internal water.

If certain specified factors are present it is accepted that a bay is not simply “historic”, but is under the jurisdiction of the corresponding country. Therefore state territories which includes the coastal zone, have “historic” bays within their borders as a rule. Normally these bays are well known and consequently there is no necessity to mention their “historic” nature.

The main ones are: in the Russian Federation Peter the Great Bay and Penzhin Bay in the Far East; in Europe the Bristol Channel, Moray Firth, Conception (Great Britain), Cancal (France); in North America Hudson Bay (Canada), Delaware Bay, Monterey Bay, Chesapeake Bay, Santa Monica Bay (USA).

“Internal waters” in Canada

Note: See internal waters in Canada.
As several other nations, Canada follows the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“Internal waters” (French: eaux intérieures), as stated by the Canada’s Interpretation Act, which provides rules for the interpretation of legislation,

• in relation to Canada, means the internal waters of Canada as determined under the Canadian Oceans Act and includes the airspace above and the bed and subsoil below those waters, and
• in relation to any other country (but from the point of view of the Canadian legislation), means the waters on the landward side of the baselines of the territorial sea of the other state.

See Also

Territorial waters
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
Freedom of the seas
Baseline
Territorial seas
Exclusive economic zone
Continental shelf
Contiguous zone
Archipelagic waters
Maritime Law
International waters

Internal Waters

Embracing mainstream international law, this section on internal waters explores the context, history and effect of the area of the law covered here.

Resources

Further Reading

• The entry “internal waters” in the Parry and Grant Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law (currently, the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law, 2009), Oxford University Press