Link
to text of agreement
Status
of agreement
| Basic information |
| Date of adoption | 29 April 1958 |
| Place of adoption | Geneva, Switzerland |
| Entry into force | 30 September 1962 |
| Authentic text(s) | Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish |
| Associated instruments | 1982 Law of the Sea Convention |
| Summary of provisions |
Objectives
To establish a general regime for the high seas.
Scope
- Material (living resources)
All marine living resources.
- Geographic
Global (high seas).
Organizational mechanism
None. The Secretary-General of the United Nations acts as Depositary.
| Description of agreement |
The Convention on the High Seas was one of the four Conventions on the law of the sea adopted at the First United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I) in Geneva in 1958. The Convention provided a definition of the "high seas" (meaning all parts of the sea that are not included in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State) and codified the traditional principle of freedom of the high seas, including the freedom of fishing. Thus, article 2 of the Convention provides that the high seas are open to all nations (and that no State may validly purport to subject any part of them to its sovereignty) and specifies certain activities (navigation, fishing, laying of submarine cables and pipelines and overflight) which are included within the concept of the freedom of the high seas. These freedoms, and others which are recognized by the general principles of international law, are to be exercised by States with reasonable regard to the interests of other States in their exercise of the same freedoms. The remainder of the Convention does not concern fishing directly, but deals instead with various matters concerning the registration and nationality of ships (including the principle that there must exist a genuine link between the State and a ship registered in that State), safety at sea, piracy and other crimes at sea and the laying of submarine cables. The only exception to this is Article 29 which provides that every State shall take the necessary legislative measures to ensure that the owners of ships who can prove that they have sacrificed a net or any other fishing gear in order to avoid injuring a submarine cable or pipeline shall be indemnified by the owner of the cable or pipeline, provided that the owner of the ship has taken all reasonable precautionary measures beforehand.
| Further information and references |
- Bibliographic references
R.R. Churchill and A.V. Lowe, The Law of the Sea (Manchester University Press, 1999, 3rd ed.), Chapter 11
G. Fitzmaurice, 'Some Results of the Geneva Conference on the Law of the Sea', 8 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 73 (1959)
- Related instruments
Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas
Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone
Convention on the Continental Shelf
- Additional treaty references
450 UNTS 82; TIAS 5200; 1963 UKTS 5; 1963 ATS 12