ABSTRACT
In the years since World War Two, major advances in off shore technology, increases in maritime trade, and the growing economic value of off shore energy, mineral, and living resources have led to a breakdown of the centuries-old division of the ocean between three-mile territorial seas under coastal state authority and the high seas, where freedom of navigation and exploitation typically reigned. Following a period of expanding coastal state claims over the seas and their resources, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea established a new order of the oceans that promised the stability needed to protect sovereignty, provide for national security, promote trade and development, and safeguard the marine environment. This is particularly important in the Indian Ocean, where intense use, overlapping claims of sovereignty, and dysfunctional governments are putting the international legal regime under great stress and increasing the danger of confl ict.
