REGULATING AND REDUCING POLLUTION - Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 211

What is the Law of the Sea?
The United Nations Convention on the Territorial Sea and
the Contiguous Zone (1958) outlined the rights and respon-
sibilities of States in their offshore waters. In 1982, the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOS) further developed
the role of States in their marine areas and beyond. While
the United States ratified the 1958 Convention, by the end of
2013, it had not signed onto the 1982 Convention. The LOS
sets forth a legal framework for the sea, the seabed, and
its subsoil, plus the protection of the marine environment
and its resources. It requires countries to adopt regulations
and laws to control marine pollution and establishes juris-
dictional limits on the ocean area that countries may claim,
including a 12-mile territorial sea limit and a 200-mile exclu-
sive economic zone limit. (The practice of nations claiming
jurisdictional rights over activities in waters off their coast
dates back to the seventeenth century, where a three-nautical
mile territorial sea was recognized as the limit of a state's
control over activities off its coast.) The United States rec-
ognizes that the principles in the 1982 LOS Convention
reflect customary international law, but it is not bound by
the agreement itself.
What is MARPOL?
In 2008 the United States became a Party to Annex VI of the
International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from
Ships (MARPOL). MARPOL Annex VI addresses vessel air
pollution; large, diesel-powered ocean-going vessels such
as container ships; tankers; cruise ships; and bulk carriers,
which must limit their emissions of nitrogen oxides and use
cleaner-burning fuels to reduce sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emissions.
Parties may also designate areas off their coasts—called SO 2
emission control areas—where more stringent controls apply.
Since air pollution comes down in precipitation to become
water pollution, this will improve the marine environment as