Volume IV: Fishery Zones and Limits

The assertion by coastal States of claims to distinctive fishery zones principally occurred throughout the 20th century and broadly paralleled the development of the international law of the sea. In this respect, the earliest claims by States to adjacent maritime zones in the form of rights over a territorial sea over which sovereignty could be exercised also included elements of a claim to the natural resources, especially fisheries, within those waters (Fisheries, Coastal; see also Natural Resources, Permanent Sovereignty over). It was not until the Hague Conference in 1930 that a movement commenced for the possible codification of the then developing law of the sea, at which point attention was given to the issue of the breadth of the territorial sea and of any other related maritime zones.