Page 425 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

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MONOGRAPH FIVE !

In 1967, 1970 and 1972, Kuwait, Sharjah and the Sultanate of :
Oman, respectively, passed legislation in which they declared a belt
of territorial sea extending twelve nautical miles from their J
respective coasts. Although in practice, all the Gulf States have now
adopted a belt of twelve miles of territorial sea, there are still three
states, namely, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates
(Sharjah excepted), which have not yet declared the extension of i
their territorial seas by virtue of legislative actions. i
The laws concerning the extension of the territorial seas of
Kuwait, Sharjah and Oman will be described below.

1. State of Kuwait
On 17 December 1967, Kuwait extended, by an Amiri Decree, her
belt of territorial sea to twelve nautical miles, to be measured from
the base-line of the mainland and the Kuwaiti islands in the manner
set forth in Article 2 of this Decree.2 (Art. 1). i
According to Article 2, the base-line of the territorial sea shall be
measured from the “lowest low-water mark along the entire
shore”of the mainland of the Kuwaiti islands.

As regards the Bay of Kuwait, i
“whose waters are considered inland waters, the base-line is a line drawn
from headline to headline as defined in the third appendix to Law No. 12 of
1964 concerning the pollution of navigational waters by oil”.
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Article 3 defines the term “island” as any “naturally formed land
areas surrounded by water which is not submerged at mid-high ■
tide”.
This definition of an island is in line with Article 10 of the Geneva '
Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, 1958, s
except that the latter Article requires an island to remain “above
water at high tide”.3
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1. For the positions of the Arabian Gulf States concerning the limits of their :
territorial seas, see this book, pp. 280-284, above. Regarding the Gulf States’
claims to jurisdiction over the continental shelf, see analysis of their :
proclamations of 1949, on this matter at pp. 278-280, above.
2. Decree of 17 December 1967, al-Kuwait al-Youm, No. 658,24 December 1967.
And see Appendix No. 25.
3. U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 13/L. 52.