Because of its extensive coastline, the Soviet Union gains more
additional miles of maritime area due to straight baseline claims than
perhaps any other coastal state. Within these claims, there are
numerous examples of failed bays enclosed by invalid baselines.
For example, baseline segments 15-27 and 28-35 on the Black Sea,
segments I I 1-25 on the Kara Sea, segments 1-10 on Vrangelya Island
in the East Siberian Sea, segments 94- I I 3 on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the North Pacific, segments 2-10 and 17-18 in the Sea of Japan, segments 21-2 on the Tartar Strait, and 58-9 on the Sea of
Okhotsk, as well as many of the newly-published Arctic claims (none
pictured here), all contain numerous examples of the enclosure of
arguably illegal bays.
Perhaps the most instructive for our purposes in this section are the
baselines established on three of the Kuril Islands which, although
claimed by Japan, have been occupied and administered by the Soviet
Union since 1945. Segments 1-7 on Ostrov Kunashir, which is pictured
in detail in Fig. 5.23, as well as segments 1-12 on Shikotan-To, and
1-11 on Ostrov Iturup enclose coastal indentations which fail to pass
the semi-circle test of Article 7 (LOSC Article 10). In several cases, the
indentations are so minor as to be barely perceptible on a small-scale
map, as illustrated by the insert on Fig. 5.23. In no case could the
waters enclosed be considered more like the land than the open sea.
Like the segments on the Sea of Japan which contain the seeds of
dispute with China and North Korea, the Kuril Island claims will have
a significant effect on maritime boundary negotiations, already
complicated by the dispute over land territory, with Japan.
By enclosing virtually every indentation along its coast, legitimate or
not, with a straight baseline, the USSR has increased its exclusive
control over hundreds of thousands of miles of ocean space. This
practice has a significant impact on the military and economic interests
of third states. In addition, the area of continental shelf and exclusive
economic zone gained thereby has removed significant amounts of the
high seas from the Common Heritage.
