Looks like someone’s decided to extend Peru’s maritime borders by tagging the edge of the Peruvian EEZ as the edge of their territorial waters. Could someone check what’s going on please.
See entry for Mar de Grau beyond 12 nautical miles here:
Oh well.
Guess we’ll just have to have it tagged incorrectly then. UNCLOS is the law. 12 nautical miles for territorial waters and that’s it. Peruvian unilateral assertions that are ignored by every other nation should be tagged as such. If it’s meant to show as a disputed border then it doesn’t appear to be. Tag it as an EEZ with additional notes about the unilateral Peruvian assertions and have done with it.
BTW I’m from the UK with no South American connection. Neutral observer in other words. If I find it utter nonsense then there’s a pretty good chance it IS utter nonsense.
It’s a funny little situation, isn’t it? The Peruvian maritime claim sits in a bit of a twilight zone. Normally the on-the-ground rule would apply – essentially a preference for de facto boundaries rather than de jure boundaries. But who on the ground would help us clarify a maritime boundary dispute? Most of the boundary extends into portions of the sea that no other country has a specific claim to, other than freedom of navigation.
Peru is a sovereign nation that has chosen not to opt into UNCLOS. To the extent the claim is disputed by that other major nonparty to the convention, the U.S., it’s based on a view of customary international law rather than UNCLOS. But what if Peru has its own view of customary international law? After all, there were different traditional maritime limits prior to the 20th century, some of which still stand as exceptions to the 12 nm limit. When international courts have looked into Peru’s situation, the rulings have been carefully worded. Different mappers looked at those rulings and came to different conclusions. Oy.
At least OSM doesn’t have to worry about historical claims. OpenHistoricalMap still hasn’t gotten around to depicting Denmark–Norway’s claim of a big swath of the North Atlantic Ocean…