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Maritime Zone

vr.wm-plc-007 · wm-plc-007-maritime-zone

Legally defined sea areas and their limits, jurisdiction and rights.

World Models Physical world and living systems PHY.PLC.MAR
Bundle → Layer → Finding → QuestionsClassifiersWhat it isWhy it existsDistinguishing featuresWhat robots and AI may and may not doMoral aspectsOwnersLinks to other meta-modelsIdentity and identifiersDirect propertiesRecognitionCapabilities and actionsHazards and failure modesStandards and interfacesContext of useSources

Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled

3 bundles · 3 layers · 5 findings · 11 questions

Zone definition Which zone it is and under which legal basis.

Zone type and basis

The kind of zone and the law or agreement that creates it.

Zone type

The zone kind, such as territorial sea or exclusive economic zone, and the coastal state or authority.

  1. Which kind of zone is this, and which state or authority claims or manages it?
  2. Under which law, treaty or designation was the zone established?

Rights and restrictions

The rights the coastal state holds and the restrictions that apply to others.

  1. Which rights does the coastal state hold in this zone?
  2. Which activities are restricted or permitted for other states or users?
Geometry Where the zone lies.

Baselines and limits

The baselines, outer limits and coordinate reference used.

Limit lines

The baselines and outer limits with their geodetic datum and source.

  1. From which baselines is the zone measured?
  2. Which coordinates and geodetic datum define the outer limit?
  3. Have the limits been deposited with the United Nations?
Status Whether the zone is settled or disputed.

Delimitation and disputes

Agreed boundaries with neighbours and overlapping claims.

Delimitation status

Whether boundaries with neighbouring states are agreed, adjudicated or disputed.

  1. Is the boundary with each neighbouring state agreed by treaty or decided by a court?
  2. Are there overlapping claims, and which parties make them?

Validity in time

The date from which the zone and its limits apply, and later changes.

  1. Since when do these limits apply?
  2. Have the limits been revised, and what was the previous version?

Classifiers Filled

Family
World Models
Category
Physical world and living systems
Entry kind
entity
Navigation path
NAV.PHY.PLC.MAR
Domain
PHY.PLC.MAR
Industry
Cross-industry
Tags
maritimezonephy.plc.mar

What it is Filled

A maritime zone is an area of sea, seabed or subsoil defined by law, such as internal waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone or continental shelf, together with the baselines and limits that bound it. It also covers zones set for purposes like fishing, shipping or protection where they are legally delimited. Land territory, airspace and the physical properties of the ocean are outside the class.

In scope

  • Stable zone identity, classifications, legal-basis assertions and role-qualified authority references
  • Baseline dependencies, domain-qualified limits, geometry revisions, uncertainty and derived measurements
  • Rights and duties references, passage and overlay links, delimitation status and competing claims
  • Temporal continuity, source publicity and deposit evidence, proposed diagnostic and exchange operations

Out of scope

  • State, authority, legal instrument and jurisdiction master lifecycles; determining sovereignty, legal competence or validity
  • Airspace operations, vessel navigation, ocean observations and surveys, fisheries licensing and conservation management
  • Creating or depositing official claims, treaty negotiation, court adjudication, enforcement, detention and controlled-item operations
  • Universal rules for coastline change, automatic continental shelf entitlement computation, exhaustive high-seas or Area regimes and current national claims catalogue

Why it exists Filled

Legally defined sea areas and their limits, jurisdiction and rights.

Distinguishing features Filled

  • It is a legally defined area, not a physical description of the sea or seabed.
  • Its extent depends on baselines and legal rules, so geometry and legal basis must be kept together.
  • Airspace above the sea and land territory have their own models.
  • Claims can overlap and be disputed, so one area may carry several competing zone records.

What robots and AI may and may not do Filled

Must not

  • Present a disputed claim as settled or take sides in a boundary dispute.
  • Use limit lines for navigation without the official nautical charts.
  • Mix limits from different geodetic datums without transformation.
  • Alter official limit coordinates.
  • Give legal advice on rights in a zone as if it were binding.

Only with a human decision

  • Asserting or changing a maritime claim on behalf of a state.
  • Deciding on enforcement action at sea.
  • Interpreting the law in a contested delimitation.

May

  • Report the zone type, legal basis and limits with their source and datum.
  • Determine in which zones a given position lies, with the uncertainty of the limits.
  • Show overlapping claims as separate records with their claimants.
  • Report the delimitation status between neighbouring states.

Moral aspects Filled

  • Maritime boundaries decide access to fish, energy and minerals that livelihoods depend on.
  • Biased presentation of disputed zones can inflame conflicts between states.
  • Coastal communities and small island states are strongly affected by zone decisions.

Who is affected

  • Coastal states and their populations
  • Fishers and shipping operators
  • Coastal and island communities
  • Offshore energy and mining operators

Owners Filled

Steward

The national authority for hydrography or maritime boundaries acting for the coastal state.

Roles

Dimension owner
Approve local scope, namespace, access and retention bindings without asserting state sovereignty
Maritime legal reviewer
Review regime applicability, instruments and claim qualifications; refer unresolved interpretation
Geospatial reviewer
Review CRS, segment roles, geometry derivations and uncertainty without adjudicating rights
Evidence steward
Maintain source locators, version history, licenses and verification holds
Consumer agent
Respect purpose, attribution and unknown states; refuse unsupported legal or operational conclusions

Master systems

  • National maritime boundary register
  • United Nations deposit of maritime limits
  • Official nautical charts

Links to other meta-models Filled

references

  • WM-POL-015 Jurisdiction - Candidate reference for separately mastered authority scope. This model binds a zone, domain and cited regime assertion; it does not evaluate competence or enforce rules. Proposed binding only; target version must be resolved before use.
  • WM-PLC-008 Airspace - Airspace volume and operations remain separate. Maritime assertions may reference associated airspace effects; excluding its master does not deny those legal relationships. Proposed binding only; target version must be resolved before use.
  • WM-EAR-010 Ocean / Marine State - Measurements may support baseline or shelf evidence, but physical ocean state and observation lifecycle are externally mastered. Proposed binding only; target version must be resolved before use.
  • Legal instrument and geographic feature masters - Store versioned references and local applicability rather than copying legal enactment, survey, island or installation lifecycles. Proposed binding only; target version must be resolved before use.

aligned

  • IHO S-121 Edition 1.0.0 - Candidate maritime exchange mapping; official register marks this edition for implementation/testing only. Product catalogue mapping and fixtures are deferred.
  • OGC GeoSPARQL 1.1 - Candidate feature, geometry, CRS and topology representation. It supplies no legal recognition, maritime entitlement or operational permission.
  • W3C PROV-O 2013-04-30 - Candidate attribution and revision lineage; no truth or legal-validity inference.

neighbor

  • WM-POL-015 Jurisdiction - Candidate reference for separately mastered authority scope. This model binds a zone, domain and cited regime assertion; it does not evaluate competence or enforce rules.
  • WM-PLC-008 Airspace - Airspace volume and operations remain separate. Maritime assertions may reference associated airspace effects; excluding its master does not deny those legal relationships.
  • WM-EAR-010 Ocean / Marine State - Measurements may support baseline or shelf evidence, but physical ocean state and observation lifecycle are externally mastered.
  • Legal instrument and geographic feature masters - Store versioned references and local applicability rather than copying legal enactment, survey, island or installation lifecycles.
  • wm-plc-008-airspace - Airspace over the sea is a separate legally defined volume.
  • wm-ear-010-ocean-marine-state - The physical state of the ocean is described separately.

related

  • wm-pol-015-jurisdiction - A maritime zone defines where a state's jurisdiction applies at sea.

What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled

Identity and identifiers required Filled

  • A zone is identified by its type, the coastal state and the legal instrument that defines it.
  • Limit lines are identified by the deposit or publication reference of the coordinates.
  • Shared gazetteers of maritime boundaries assign their own identifiers to zones.

Direct properties required Filled

  • Breadth of the zone from the baselines in nautical miles.
  • Area of the zone in square kilometres, computed on a stated geodetic datum.
  • Positional accuracy of the limit coordinates in metres where stated.
  • Water depth or seabed features only where the legal definition depends on them, such as the continental shelf.

Recognition required Filled

  • A zone is recognised by its limits on official charts and in deposited coordinate lists.
  • Often confused with fishing areas, shipping lanes or protected areas that have other legal bases.

Capabilities and actions required Filled

  • A position can be tested against zone limits.
  • Zones can be compared over time when limits are revised.
  • Overlapping claims can be identified from separate zone records.

Hazards and failure modes required Filled

  • Wrong position-in-zone results from datum errors or outdated limits.
  • Incidents at sea arising from contested zones.
  • Illegal fishing or extraction exploiting unclear limits.

Standards and interfaces required Filled

  • IHO S-121 Maritime Limits and Boundaries product specification.
  • IHO S-57 and S-101 electronic navigational chart standards.
  • UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea deposit of charts and coordinates.

Context of use required Filled

  • Governed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and national maritime laws.
  • Used in fisheries, shipping, offshore energy, marine protection and law enforcement at sea.

Sources Filled

  1. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - United Nations
  2. Maritime claims - collection and disclaimer - United Nations
  3. S-121 Maritime Limits and Boundaries product register - International Hydrographic Organization
  4. U.S. Maritime Limits and Boundaries - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  5. OGC GeoSPARQL - A Geographic Query Language for RDF Data - Open Geospatial Consortium
  6. PROV-O: The PROV Ontology - World Wide Web Consortium
  7. Maritime space: maritime zones and maritime delimitation - legislation and treaties collection - United Nations
  8. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), United Nations
  9. S-121 Maritime Limits and Boundaries, International Hydrographic Organization
  10. Marine Regions gazetteer, Flanders Marine Institute

Open questions

  • Verify source versions and selected treaty text against original pages; review current national instruments, treaty application, deposits, objections, licensing and legal profile assumptions.
  • Develop pinned nested schemas and external mappings with fixtures for rival claims, partial boundaries, vertical domains, missing datum, antimeridian topology, uncertain positions, date-only law and lossy exchange.
  • Restore independent external review and resolve all remaining source, legal-profile and implementation holds before any canonical or publishable-draft promotion.
  • Current national claims, objections, instruments, treaty-party positions and licenses have not been exhaustively verified
  • Coastline-change and sea-level-rise legal treatment, historic rights, straits exceptions and detailed shelf science require specialist profiles
  • Detailed high-seas, Area, fisheries, conservation, protected-area and safety-zone regimes are reference-only extensions
  • S-121 product archive, nested instance schemas, pinned neighbor versions and executable spatial/mapping fixtures remain unreviewed
  • Direct HTTP checks were not attempted under the owner-reported sandbox restriction; two official collection pages were only available as indexed excerpts

Machine files

Card as JSON Specification AGENTS.md Source Card backlog vercy.card/1

Provenance

world-models research · reviewable-draft

Built from: models/wm-plc-007-maritime-zone/spec.yaml, ver-cy/world-models/card-supplements/wm-plc-007-maritime-zone.json