Passage through straits wanted

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33583, 11 July 1974, Page 13

Passage through straits wanted

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright; CARACAS, July 10. Singapore has raised one of the most controversial but least discussed issues of the United Nations Law of the Sea conference — the passage of military vessels through straits of the world.

Most of the countries at the conference have carefully avoided mentioning military matters. But many delegations, including those of the United States and the Soviet Union, have military men in civilian clothes as delegates. Mr H. T. Chao, a legal officer in die Attorney-General’s office in Singapore and deputy chief of his country’s delegation in Caracas, said that Singapore bordered on one of the busiest straits in

the world, the straits of Malacca and Singapore. His delegation detected that most countries favoured continued unimpeded navigation for commercial vessels through straits, Mr Chao said. Singapore believed that the same policy could apply perhaps with some modification, to military ships. Under the present tradition of innocent passage through waters controlled by coastal states, submarines must travel on the surface and military overflights in aircraft are not permitted. The real difficulty on this point, said Mr Chao, was the question of prior notification of submarines and the need for them to surface when travelling through straits. The world has some 100 straits—narrow waterways connecting large areas of the oceans—although relatively few are of major strategic importance.

Because there appears to be broad consensus among many countries at the conference about extending territorial ocean limits further out from the coasts of seabordering nations, some of these straits would suddenly come under control of those states. Traditionally, straits have been open to all international navigation, but extending territorial limits could change that.