Ireland has the legal right to say “no” to Russia or any other state seeking to conduct military exercises within an exclusive economic zone, an international maritime law expert has said.
As The Times Ireland edition reports, Prof Clive Symmons, retired lecturer in maritime law at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), says the Government was “incorrect” in stating last month that Russia was legally within its rights to conduct military exercises within Ireland’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
On January 24th, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said that while the military exercises were “not welcome”, Ireland did not have the powers to prevent the exercises from happening.
Last Saturday, Mr Coveney confirmed that Russian naval exercises due to take place later this week would be relocated outside of Ireland’s EEZ after he had written to the Russian defence minister Sergey Shoigu requesting a “reconsideration”.
Russian ambassador to Ireland Yuriy Filatov confirmed the relocation as a “gesture of goodwill”, following requests from the Irish government and the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation.
The ambassador has accepted an invitation to appear before the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee today.
Prof Symmons said that military use of the sea was not included in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and remained a “grey area” that allowed for varied interpretations.
He said that in practical terms, some states like the US claim such activity is still exercisable in another state's EEZ, even without its consent as an implied high seas freedom.
However, other states such as China claim it is forbidden in their EEZ, he said.
“For these reasons, I think Mr Coveney was mistaken in his seemingly ready acceptance of such activity being legal in the Irish EEZ,” Prof Symmons said.
Prof Symmons said that a foreign state has “no express right in UNCLOS to conduct any military activities (let alone naval exercises) in the EEZ of another state without its permission”, and such exercises are “not an implied high seas freedom in this context”.
However, a coastal state may also have no clear right under the same convention to “interfere with military/naval activities”, and may be obliged to permit high seas navigational freedoms in relation to military vessels transiting.
Prof Symmons explained that EEZ rights are defined under Articles 56 (2), 58 and 59 of the UN convention as being sovereign for “the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living".
He said that as the initial Russian notification to exercise 240 km off the Irish coast involved an important Irish EEZ fishing area, this gave Ireland the right to object.
The UN convention also refers to "unattributed rights", where a dispute arises over the rights of the EEZ state and others.
Read more in The Times here