Silvia Menegazzi, 2015
Menegazzi explicates a much-needed perspective on EEZs that yokes with the South China Sea controversy. The key takeaway is that the US established EEZs through praxis in the 1960s, and aligned nations with particular stakes in maritime sovereignty, like Chile, supported the de facto order in order to further their own interests. Once other nations had strategically asserted subsequent claims it reached a critical mass and effectively became enshrined in maritime law. No doubt there is as-of-yet unappreciated subtlety here and in the wider debate, but the genealogy of the EEZ is conspicuously absent from discussions of China’s push for extended sovereignty in anglophone media.
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