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A Greek Exclusive Economic Zone in the Aegean Sea

Theodore C. Kariotis

For more than thirty years, Greece has been insisting that its only dispute with Turkey is of a legal nature and is related to the delimitation of the con-tinental shelf of the Aegean Sea. But for more than twenty-five years the con-cept of the continental shelf has been overshadowed by the concept of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Since the beginning of the new Convention of the Law of the Sea (CLOS) in 1982, not a single country has requested delimitation of its continental shelf along with the simultaneous delimitation of the EEZ.

The Turks are delighted because they hear the Greek government and all the Greek political parties discussing only the continental shelf without ever mentioning the EEZ. The main reason, of course, for this great elation is that they know that Greece could gain much from the delimitation of the EEZ in the Aegean Sea. Figuratively speaking, the Turks are putting their heads in the sand while the Greeks have blinders on and continually mention only the continental shelf.

This held true until recently, when Cyprus decided to sign an agreement with Egypt for delimitation of the EEZs of the two countries, and then to commence oil exploration in the Cypriot EEZ. The Greek government seems to agree with and support the Cypriot position. At the same time, the Greeks are completely in the dark about the concept of the EEZ because they have never openly articulated this new concept of the Law of the Sea. The main reason for the Greek-Turkish dispute is the existence of oil in the Aegean Sea, yet Greek governments have never asked for delimitation of the EEZ

Mediterranean Quarterly 18:3 DOI 10.1215/10474552-2007-017Copyright 2007 by Mediterranean Affairs, Inc.

Theodore C. Kariotis is professor of economics at Towson University, Maryland.

Kariotis: A Greek Exclusive Economic Zone in the Aegean Sea 57

in the Aegean. Now, the Cypriot initiative brings to the forefront this great Greek omission, and it puts Turkey in a very difficult position since it does not wish to mention the EEZ, which could be detrimental to the interests of Turkey in the Mediterranean.

The position taken by Turkey is not a surprise, because Turkey was opposed to the concept of the EEZ as well as its inclusion in the final docu-ment of the 1982 convention. On 30 April 1982, a final vote took place in New York for the new CLOS. The results were 130 in favor, 4 against, and 17 abstentions. Turkey was upset with this convention, and it was one of four countries that voted against it. Greece, on the other hand, was almost com-pletely satisfied with the benefits of the new constitution for the oceans and voted in favor of the convention.

Some Greeks fear that Greece would be in danger of losing its case should it take the dispute to The Hague. Turkey, for its own reasons, does not want the Greek-Turkish dispute to reach the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Turkey will worry if Greece insists on the simultaneous delimitation of the continental shelf and the EEZ. For many years, Turkey has been adding issues at the negotiating table, such as gray zones, demilitarization of islands, and the breadth of the territorial waters. On the other hand, Greece has not dared to add the issue of the EEZ to the negotiations.

The Concept of the EEZ

In 1967, Malta’s ambassador to the United Nations, Arvid Pardo, called for an international conference to devise a new law of the seas, and referred to the oceans as “the common heritage of mankind.” Fifteen years later, on 10 December 1982, nearly 120 countries signed the new UN convention, thereby ending one of the lengthiest and most significant international con-ferences of the modern era.

Part 5 of that convention (and more precisely Articles 55 to 75) provides for an EEZ extending two hundred nautical miles seaward from the coast. If all coastal states thus exercised their jurisdiction over their own EEZs, some 38 million square nautical miles would become their “economic patrimony.”1

1. United Nations, A Quiet Revolution (New York: United Nations, 1984).

58 Mediterranean Quarterly: Summer 2007

The oceans represent 71 percent of the total surface of the earth, and 32 per-cent of that area falls under the jurisdiction of coastal states. Consequently, inside these economic zones would lie 90 percent of global fishing, 87 per-cent of all oil deposits, and 10 percent of all polymetallic nodules.2 The pro-visions of the EEZ constitute new law. As Bernard H. Oxman indicates:

Measured by any yardstick — political, military, economic, scientific, environmental, or recreational — the overwhelming proportion of activities and interests in the sea is affected by this new regime.3

Article 56 of the convention provides the following rights of the coastal state in its economic zone:

A. Exclusive sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring, conserving, and managing living and nonliving natural resources of the waters, the seabed, and subsoilB. Exclusive sovereign rights to control other activities such as the pro-duction of energy from the water, currents, and windsC. The right to control dumping of wastesD. The right to be informed of, participate in, and withhold consent for proposed marine scientific research projectsE. The right to board, inspect, and arrest a merchant ship suspected of discharging pollutants in the economic zone.

Article 58 of the convention provides the following rights of other states in the economic zone:

A. The high seas freedoms of navigation, overflight, and right to lay sub-marine cables and pipelinesB. Other lawful uses of the sea related to these freedoms, such as those associated with the operation of ships, aircraft, and submarine cables and pipelines

The EEZ provisions have received widespread support and have become an integral part of international practice, especially now that the 1982 CLOS

2. Ibid.3. Bernard H. Oxman, “The New Law of the Sea,” American Bar Association Journal 69 (1983): 156 – 62.


is actively being enforced. Additionally, Articles 55 and 86 of the convention make it clear that the EEZ is neither a part of the territorial sea nor the high seas; it is a zone sui generis, with a statute of its own.4

By the end of 2006, 127 countries had claimed two-hundred-mile EEZs or had established a two-hundred-mile Exclusive Fishing Zone (EFZ). The countries benefiting the most from the EEZ concept are, in order of the size of their zones, the United States, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Canada.5 If this concept were to be applied by all coastal Mediterranean states, the entire sea would be covered by EEZs of the littoral countries. The countries of the Mediterranean that would benefit most from an EEZ are Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and Malta.

The Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is surrounded by twenty-two states; its coastal zones (territorial sea, contiguous zone, EEZ, and continental shelf) have been codified by the CLOS, which entered into force on 16 November 1994, after it was ratified by sixty states. As of summer 2007, 154 countries have rati-fied it.

The 1982 convention drastically changed the maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean. The most important changes include the following:

1. Every Mediterranean state has the right to extend the limits of its ter-ritorial sea to twelve miles.2. The contiguous zone may be increased from the former twelve nautical miles to twenty-four nautical miles.3. The concept of an EEZ, if adopted in the Mediterranean, would subject the whole sea to the jurisdiction of the coastal states.4. The 1982 convention makes considerable changes in the right of free transit in international straits. A new concept of “transit passage” has been

4. R. G. Pohl, “The Exclusive Economic Zone in the Light of Negotiations of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea,” in The Exclusive Economic Zone: A Latin American Perspective, ed. F. Orrego Vicuna (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1984), 31 – 59.5. United Nations, Maritime Claims: Department of the Law of the Sea (New York: United Nations, 2007).


introduced, which cannot be suspended by the coastal states and applies also to aircraft.6

One of the new terms of the convention that does not apply to the Mediter-ranean is that of archipelagic states. The 1982 convention established that the term archipelago refers to a group of islands and interconnecting waters that are closely interrelated and form an intrinsic geographical, political, and economic entity. In the Mediterranean, only the Maltese islands would qual-ify under the above definition, and even in that case its archipelagic waters would be quite small.7

One of the ironies of the CLOS was the fact that the above definition pre-vented Greece, with its numerous islands in the Aegean Sea, from using this concept. During the deliberations at UNCLOS III, the head of the Greek del-egation, Ambassador Constantine Stavropoulos, indicated in a very insightful speech that archipelago is a Greek word that was used for the first time in history to describe the Aegean Sea and, therefore, these waters should not be excluded from the definition of “archipelagic waters.” Unfortunately, the majority of the delegates were not persuaded by this strong argument, and in the end the Aegean was excluded from the definition.

During the discussion in the Second Committee of UNCLOS III, Turkey attempted to include a provision that would have excluded “semi-enclosed areas” from having an EEZ, thus preventing the concept of the EEZ from being applied to the Mediterranean. The Turkish proposal was the following:

The delimitation of the territorial seas, exclusive economic zones and con-tinental [shelves] between adjacent and/or opposite States bordering semi-enclosed seas shall be effected in accordance with respective provisions of this [convention], and taking into account all the relevant circumstances in such areas.8

6. Nurit Kliot, “Maritime Boundaries in the Mediterranean: Aspects of Cooperation and Dispute,” in Maritime Boundaries and Ocean Resources, ed. Gerald Blake (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 208 – 26.7. Geoffrey Marston, “Extension and Delimitation of National Sea Boundaries in the Mediterra-nean,” in The Mediterranean Region, ed. G. Luciani (New York: St. Martin’s, 1984), 75 – 125.8. Alex G. Oude Elferink, The Law of Maritime Boundary Delimitation: A Case Study of the Rus-sian Federation (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994).


Greece opposed the Turkish position by explaining that semi-enclosed seas are part of the general provisions and no special arrangements are necessary for EEZs in semi-enclosed seas.9 The Greek position finally won the argu-ment, and UNCLOS III rejected the notion that semi-enclosed seas should have rules different from those universally applicable. The 1982 convention recognized the concept of an “enclosed or semi-enclosed sea” but did not provide for any limitations on states bordering such seas.10

Six Mediterranean countries — Croatia, Egypt, France, Morocco, Slovenia, and Spain — have proclaimed two-hundred-mile EEZs. Most Mediterranean countries have not established two-hundred-mile claims not only because of the difficulty of delimitation but also because of the assumption that the Mediterranean Sea is not richly endowed in terms of living resources. But as coastal states continue to adopt EEZs, the pressure will increase upon other Mediterranean countries to do the same, since the fishing fleets of many of these countries have been excluded from areas pronounced to be EEZs, mostly in the North Sea and the coast of West Africa. When the entire Mediterranean area has been surrounded by EEZs, it is expected that a more rational harvest and utilization regime will emerge.11

Another concern, of course, is oil, which has been discovered near the territorial waters of six countries in the Mediterranean: Egypt, Greece, Italy, Libya, Spain, and Tunisia. Offshore oil production in the Mediterranean is not now an important factor when compared to the global energy picture. Nevertheless, exploration activity has increased in the past decade, although there are still some political and legal obstacles that have kept some countries from proceeding with their own offshore exploration. Most of these obstacles will slowly diminish when Mediterranean countries establish EEZs. If this were done, exploration would certainly intensify, especially in the areas of the eastern and central Mediterranean, where the seabed lies under less than one thousand meters of water.12

9. Marston.10. Faraj Abdulah Ahnish, The International Law of Maritime Boundaries and the Practice of States in the Mediterranean Sea (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993).11. Ibid.12. Giacomo Luciani “The Mediterranean and the Energy Picture,” in The Mediterranean Region, 1 – 40.


Now that Cyprus and Malta are member states of the European Union, EU members account for a major portion of the northern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean. Accordingly, more delimitation solutions can be found with EU neighbors, which could also create more viable positions for the protec-tion of the fisheries and environment of the Mediterranean.

The Role of the EU

At present, most member states of the EU have established either an EEZ or an EFZ. Since many EEZ issues are also related to matters of the competence of the EU as described by EU treaties and by European Community law, we can assume that they extend to the establishment of an overall EEZ for the EU. Therefore, implementation of an EEZ by an EU member state through national legislation or through an international organization will inevitably fall within the competence of the EU. The competence of the community on matters involving the EEZ rests on the fact that many of the duties that were conferred on coastal states have an impact on areas of existing community competence.

Furthermore, on 3 November 1976, the EC Council passed a resolution titled “External Aspects of the Creation of a 200-mile Fishing Zone in the Community,” which is also known as the “Hague Resolution.” In this resolu-tion, the council declared that on 1 January 1977, North Sea member states of the community would extend their jurisdiction with regard to fisheries to two hundred miles from their North Sea and North Atlantic coasts. The council also stated in this resolution that this action was “without prejudice to similar action being taken for other fishing zones within their jurisdiction such as the Mediterranean.”13 Although the resolution indicated that in the future such a zone would be extended to the Mediterranean, such an exten-sion has not taken place to date.

The community not only became a signatory of the 1982 CLOS but also ratified it on 1 January 1998, a fact that should enhance its competence

13. Ton Ijlstra, “Development of Resources Jurisdiction in the EC’s Regional Sea: National EEZ Policies of EC Member States in the Northeast Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Baltic Sea,” Ocean Development and International Law 23 (1992): 165 – 92.


in all the areas in which part 5 of the convention confers rights and duties upon coastal states. Additionally, since the signing of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the community has transformed itself into the EU, with consider-able powers and jurisdiction. Lately, the position of Turkey has become more difficult because the EU is insisting that Turkey, in order to become a full member of the EU, should ratify the convention as soon as possible.

The concept of a common EU EEZ policy is a very important one, and the government of Greece should actively pursue its establishment. This is because a Greek EEZ, which in fact would also be an EU EEZ, could resolve the Greek-Turkish dispute in the Aegean Sea without involving the issues of territorial waters and the continental shelf. A potential joint declaration proclaiming an EU EEZ in the Mediterranean would reduce the credibility of the casus belli threat frequently pronounced by the Turkish side. As Byron Theodoropoulos stated in 1997:

It would seem that the stakes involved for Turkey in the Aegean are of at least doubtful value. One might be justified to wonder, why is Turkey willing to pay the cost of confrontation? If Turkey has indeed a direct and vital interest in strengthening its relationship with the European Union by means of an ever closer association, why antagonize a member state of the Union and frustrate or at least considerably delay this process? Why spend so much diplomatic capital in friction with Greece, when it would be more profitable to establish a working relationship with Greece?

Against this background of relatively low stakes at a relatively high cost one wonders if the Turkish foreign policy has got its priorities right. What started as diversionary tactics in the context of the Cyprus problem has now become an end in itself and has created in Ankara the impression, not to say the fixation, that the Aegean is a promising bounty worth all the cost involved. This is regrettable from the Greek point of view. It is even more regrettable that the Western community seems to choose an attitude of “equidistance,” which in last analysis only encourages Turkey to push the half-way mark progressively more and more toward the Greek side. Is this attitude of the West due to short-sighted anticipation of commer-cial or investment advantages for the West in Turkey? Is it the perception of Turkey as a staunch ally of the West? Is it the lack of a clear-headed


assessment of the situation? Or a lack of a strong political will? Or a little of everything?14

A Greek Exclusive Economic Zone

Although Greece has a strong legal position concerning delimitation of its continental shelf, delimitation of an EEZ is an equally viable method of resolving its dispute with Turkey in the Aegean Sea. A Greek EEZ in the Aegean Sea is justified by the following:

1. With its EEZ, Greece would safeguard the economic unity of its con-tinental and archipelagic space. Greece has a total of 3,100 islands, of which 2,463 are in the Aegean. By comparison, Turkey has only three islands in the Aegean. A reason that most coastal states have unilater-ally adopted the two-hundred-mile EEZ is to counteract overexploitation of their coastal fish stocks. A large part of the Greek fishing fleet has tra-ditionally operated in waters outside the Greek coasts and especially in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Now that many states are establishing EEZs of their own, Greek fishermen have lost access to tradi-tional fishing grounds. A Greek EEZ, therefore, would be beneficial to the fishing sector of the country, which, despite its small contribution (approxi-mately 1 percent) to gross domestic product, has a substantial role in the nourishment of the Greek population, supplying protein of high nutritional value at a relatively low cost.2. There are today 127 nations that already possess either an EEZ or an EFZ of two hundred nautical miles. The 1982 CLOS provides for an EEZ regime in which there are no restrictions prohibiting islands from having an EEZ.15

3. On 10 March 1983, the president of the United States signed a proc-lamation establishing an EEZ extending two hundred nautical miles from the US coastline. The area of this particular EEZ encompasses 3.5 mil-lion square nautical miles of ocean, an area 1.67 times larger than the

14. Byron Theodoropoulos. “The So-Called Aegean Dispute: What Are the Stakes? What Is the Cost?” in Greece and the Law of the Sea, ed. Theodore C. Kariotis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1997), 325 – 31.15. United Nations, Maritime Claims.


land area of the United States and its territories.16 This EEZ contains vital natural resources, both living and nonliving, in the seabed, subsoil, and overlying water. Most important, this US presidential proclamation gave an EEZ to all the islands of the United States, in accordance with the 1982 CLOS. The United States, therefore, would be in a difficult position to argue against a Greek EEZ similar to the one it itself has established.

Furthermore, Cuba is only ninety miles from the coast of Florida, but the United States did not argue that Cuba, because it is an island, does not have any rights to an EEZ. In fact, the United States and Cuba came to an agreement for the delimitation of their respective EEZs using the method of equidistance, which Turkey immensely dislikes. Recently, the govern-ment of Cuba decided to start oil exploration in its own EEZ, and this exploration is taking place less than fifty miles from the coast of Florida.4. When the president of the United States proclaimed an EEZ, the Soviet Union initially objected to such a move. On 28 February 1984, the presid-ium of the supreme soviet of the USSR adopted a decree on the economic zone of the USSR, also taking into consideration the relevant provisions of the CLOS. The first article of the Soviet Decree stated: “In maritime areas beyond and adjacent to the territorial waters (territorial sea) of the USSR, including areas surrounding islands belonging to the USSR, there shall be established an economic zone of the USSR, the outer limit of which shall be situated at a distance of 200 nautical miles measured from the same baseline as the territorial waters (territorial sea) of the USSR. The delimitation of the economic zone between the USSR and states with coasts opposite or adjacent to the coast of the USSR shall be effected, tak-ing into account the legislation of the USSR, by agreement on the basis of international law, in order to achieve an equitable solution.”17

5. At the end of 1986, Turkey unilaterally proclaimed a two-hundred-mile EEZ in the Black Sea. This move was in accordance with the provisions of the CLOS, which ironically Turkey has never signed or ratified and has

16. United States Department of the Interior, “A National Program for the Assessment and Devel-opment of the Mineral Resources of the United States Exclusive Economic Zone,” symposium pro-ceedings, Washington, DC, 1984.17. Robert W. Smith, Exclusive Economic Zone Claims: An Analysis and Primary Documents (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986).


always opposed. Concurrently, Turkey reached an agreement on delimitation of the EEZ with the Soviet Union. Turkey agreed that the continental shelf boundary, which was established by the Soviet-Turkish Delimitation Agree-ment of 1978, was also valid for delimitation of their EEZs. This agreement used the equidistance method; there were no provisions of special circum-stances or any reference to enclosed or semi-enclosed seas. Thus Turkey, by accepting the concept of the EEZ as developed through UNCLOS III, has weakened its position vis-à-vis Greece. This represents a fatal mistake for Turkey, a veritable Achilles heel in its dispute with Greece. The Black Sea is a semi-enclosed sea similar to the Aegean Sea, thereby putting Turkey in a difficult position should Greece use the method of the median line.

Turkey came to similar agreements with Bulgaria and Romania concern-ing delimitation of their respective EEZs in the Black Sea. In the discussions between Turkey and Bulgaria, the Turkish side argued that no special cir-cumstances apply to the Black Sea. Therefore, Turkey contended that apply-ing the equidistance principle to delimit the Turkish-Bulgarian boundary would lead to an equitable position, although Bulgaria believed exactly the opposite. Turkey’s attempt to implement a double standard position regarding the treatment of two semi-enclosed seas (Black and Aegean) is difficult to defend; it is simply an attempt to make a clear differentiation between delimi-tation of its maritime boundaries in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea.

A country cannot make a convincing argument by selectively choosing the parts of the convention it likes or dislikes. Tommy Koh of Singapore, the last president of UNCLOS III, very wisely took note of such an eventuality by observing the following:

Although the Convention consists of series of compromises, they form an integral whole. This is why the Convention does not provide for reserva-tions. It is therefore not possible for States to pick what they like and disre-gard what they do not like. In international law, as in domestic law, rights and duties go hand in hand. It is therefore legally impermissible to claim rights under the Convention without being willing to assume the correla-tive duties.18

18. Tommy Koh, quoted in Theodore C. Kariotis, “Greek Fisheries and the Role of the Exclusive Economic Zone,” in Greece and the Law of the Sea, 187 – 217.


The Future of a Greek EEZ

The government of Turkey has not accepted the proposal of Greek govern-ments since July 1974 to refer the Aegean dispute to the ICJ. Greece has a strong position, because the court would probably follow the pattern of arbi-tration between France and the United Kingdom, in which it awarded a zone of twelve miles around the Channel Islands even though the UK had main-tained a three-mile territorial sea since 1878.19 Although one cannot con-clude that a twelve-mile zone around islands is the rule of thumb for further delimitations, it is clear that the continental shelf or EEZ of an island cannot be less than its internationally recognized “maximum” territorial sea.20

If a zone of twelve miles is given to the eastern Greek islands, Turkey’s continental shelf would be limited. Turkey would receive only 2 to 4 percent of the total area of the Aegean continental shelf under the 1982 convention. But since the ICJ has lately given emphasis to equity principles, the maxi-mum area that Turkey could receive would be 10 to 15 percent of the total continental shelf area of the Aegean, assuming that the Greek islands are entitled to at least a twelve-mile zone.

The possibility of combining delimitation of the continental shelf and the EEZ by a single boundary is not unreasonable, especially since the 1982 convention indicates that the legal basis for jurisdiction over the continental shelf and the EEZ within two hundred miles rests not on any geophysical concept of prolongation but on geographical adjacency measured by distance. It is, therefore, correctly asserted that

it seems appropriate to say that, when an assessment of conflicting shelf rights is made by reference to the distance principle, the delimitation of these conflicting rights will be determined principally by geography (and not by geology or geomorphology), and the method will tend to be some form of modified equidistance. Also relevant is the alignment of the EEZ seabed rights with shelf rights within 200 miles. Both factors seem a for-tiori to reinforce the relevance of the distance criterion for delimiting a single maritime boundary.21

19. Ken Booth, Force and Diplomacy at Sea (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1985), 34.20. International Legal Materials 19, no. 2.67 (1979).21. M. D. Bletcher, “Equitable Delimitation of the Continental Shelf,” American Journal of Inter-national Law, no. 73 (1979): 60 – 88.


A single maritime boundary is a very reasonable solution for most states, because they would not like to reach a settlement through a difficult process of negotiations for one maritime boundary and then start another process in order to negotiate a settlement for the other maritime zone. Therefore, “the single maritime solution seems to be the logical outcome of the extension of coastal State jurisdiction over the resources of the EEZ and the alignment of the jurisdiction with preexisting rights over the continental shelf.”22

Also, the ICJ in its judgment in the Libya-Malta case asserted that “the two institutions — continental shelf and exclusive economic zone — are linked together in modern law. Since the rights enjoyed by a state over its continental shelf would also be possessed by it over the seabed and subsoil of any exclusive economic zone which it might proclaim, one of the relevant circumstances to be taken into account for the delimitation of the continental shelf of a state is the legally permissible extent of the exclusive economic zone appertaining to that same state.”

Further, the court stated, “It follows that, for juridical and practical rea-sons, the distance criterion must now apply to the continental shelf as well as to the exclusive economic zone; and this quite apart from the provision as to distance in paragraph 1 of Article 76.”23

As Phaedon Kozyris has explained: “If there was a case where a couple of small islands standing very close to a massive mainland, and without any geographical support from their own mainland, arrogantly claimed equal treatment, it was St. Pierre and Miquelon! Yet the Court rejected the idea that their share was to be reduced because they were purportedly ‘superimposed’ on the Canadian continental shelf or because they were not independent.

By the way, Newfoundland itself is as much of an island as St. Pierre and Miquelon! No, islands should not be enclaved within their territorial sea and yes, they have the potential of generating full 200-mile zones. No, the loca-tion of potential hydrocarbon resources has no bearing on this delimitation. Judge Weil applauded this treatment of islands which, in his view, abandons the impossible and internally contradictory ‘theory of special geographical circumstances’ and constitutes, therefore, a milestone. With this case, any doubts about the equal treatment of islands have been laid to rest.”24

22. Ahnish.23. Ibid.24. Kozyris, as quoted in ibid.


Having ratified the convention, Greece should take the initiative to pro-claim an EEZ in the Aegean Sea adhering strictly to the provisions of the CLOS. Since Turkey has argued unsuccessfully that islands are not entitled to a continental shelf, it would be even more difficult for it to claim that islands are not entitled to an EEZ. Unlike the continental shelf, the EEZ does not exist ipso facto but has to be proclaimed, and a request to delimit the EEZ entails the delimitation of both elements.25 Therefore, if the “Aegean dispute” finally reaches the ICJ, a request should be made by Greece that the court’s judgment should be directed to the delimitation of both the continen-tal shelf and the EEZ.

Figure 1 depicts clearly the EEZ of Greece based on the Convention of the Law of the Sea. Turkey faces a big problem, and the figure helps us under-stand why it does not want to negotiate the delimitation of the EEZ in the Aegean archipelago with Greece.

25. Phaedon John Kozyris, “Equity, Equidistance, Proportionality at Sea: Status of Island Coastal Fronts and a Coda for the Aegean,” in Greece and the Law of the Sea, 21 – 65.

Figure 1EEZ of Greece Based on the Convention of the Law of the Sea

Source: Courtesy of Global Marine Boundaries Database, General Dynamics Advanced Informa-tion Systems (GDAIS), Herndon, Virginia, MaritimeBoundaries.com. Reprinted with the permis-sion of GDAIS, copyright 1998 – 2007.


Figure 2 depicts the size of the EEZ of Turkey in the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas. This map clearly indicates that Turkey does not have any sea boundaries with Egypt.

The creation of an EEZ by Cyprus has forced the government of Greece to reconsider its position on the concept of the EEZ; discussions are planned on the delimitation of the EEZ with its western neighbors: Albania, Italy, and Libya.

Delimitation of a Greek EEZ with its neighboring countries, except Tur-key, presents the following picture:

Albania: The morphology of the Albanian coasts does not represent any difficulties, and the fact that in 1990 Albania reduced its territorial waters from fifteen to twelve nautical miles is a good indication that the concept of equidistance will be appropriate for an EEZ delimitation with Greece.

Cyprus: The delimitation of an EEZ will have positive results for both Cyprus and Greece, since they will be using the equidistance method.

Figure 2The EEZ of Turkey in the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas

Source: Courtesy of Global Marine Boundaries Database, GDAIS, Herndon, Virginia, Maritime-Boundaries.com. Reprinted with the permission of GDAIS, copyright 1998 – 2007.


As baselines from the Greek side, the islands of Kastelorizo, Crete, and Carpathos will be used.

Egypt: Because of the smooth coastline of this country, delimitation of an EEZ is not expected to create any problems or difficulties.

Italy: This is the easiest case, since the two countries have already delim-ited their continental shelf using the equidistance method. Therefore, in the future, they could sign an agreement in which they would specify that their respective EEZs are identical to their continental shelf.

Libya: The claim of the Gulf of Sidra as internal waters could create a problem in the delimitation of an EEZ between the two countries. No other problems are envisioned.26

Turkey knows that its position is weak as far as the EEZ is concerned. For this reason, it has never mentioned the EEZ in any conversations it has had with the Greek government since 1982. The great question is why Greece also avoids mentioning the EEZ that Turkey fears so much and does not bring the concept to the negotiating table. The only possible explanation that one can give to this question is the following: In the 1980s, Greece, in some secret discussions with Turkey, brought up the discussion of the EEZ and asked the Turks to bring it to the table. Apparently, the Turkish delegation reacted angrily by mentioning to the Greeks that this issue should never be added to the agenda of the negotiations because they believed that some of their own interests in the Aegean would suffer. And for this reason, they asked the Greeks never to bring the EEZ to the negotiations table. From the present reality, it seems that this position has been accepted by all sub sequent Greek governments. But now that the initiative of Cyprus has brought to the forefront the forgotten EEZ, the government of Greece no longer has a reason any lon-ger to ignore a part of the CLOS that is so advantageous.27

26. David Attard, The Exclusive Economic Zone in International Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987).27. Emmanuel Gounaris, “The Extension and Delimitation of Sea Areas under the Sovereignty, Sovereign Rights, and Jurisdiction of Coastal States,” in Essays in the New Law of the Sea, ed. B. Vukas (Zagreb: University of Zagreb, 1985), 85 – 95.

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new convention

new concept

cypriot eez

exclusive economic zone

new law

greek exclusive economic

new clos

continental shelf