Bays are of particular importance for coastal States because of their intimate connection with land. In this regard, the Arbitral Tribunal, in the 1910 North Atlantic Coast Fisheries case, stated:the geographical character of a bay contains conditions which concern the interests of the territorial sovereign to a more intimate and important extent than do those connected with the open coast. Thus conditions of national and territorial integrity, of defense, of commerce and of industry are all vitally concerned with the control of the bays penetrating the national coast line.Furthermore, where the low-water line rule applies to a bay whose mouth is less than twice the breadth of the territorial sea, the high seas may be enclosed within the bay. This situation will create inconvenient results for various marine activities. Hence, according to Gidel, it has been recognised that the baseline of bays for measuring the breadth of theterritorial sea is not the low-water mark. Indeed, the legal concept of a bay was admitted by the Institut de droit international in 1894 and the International Law Association in 1895, respectively. It could be said that customary law has allowed the coastal States to draw a closing line across the entrance of bays, whereby the landward waters from the closing line have become internal waters. In short, the legal concept of bays has emerged as an exception to the normal rule concerning the baseline for measuring the breadth of the territorial sea.The closing line of bays becomes the baseline for measuring the breadth of the territorial sea. Unlike the territorial sea, the right of innocent passage does not apply to internal waters. Should the waters of a bay be enclosed as internal waters, vessels flying the flag of a foreign State cannot enjoy innocent passage in these waters. The spatial scope of bays thus becomes a matter of important concern for shipping States. In this regard, the question that arises involves the criteria by which a coastal indentation can be recognised as a bay and the maximum length of the closing line across a bay. Concerning the latter, the 10-mile limit rule was applied by comparatively many treaties in the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.Nonetheless, judicial practice was more cautious about accepting the customary law character of this formula. In the 1910 North Atlantic Coast Fisheries case, for instance, the Arbitral Tribunal did not consider the 10-mile formula as ‘a principle of international law'.The legal nature of the 10-mile formula was also at issue in the 1951 Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries case. Although the United Kingdom asserted that the 10-mile formula could be regarded as a rule of international law, the ICJ refused to admit the customary law character of this formula. Overall it can be observed that customary international law has beenvague with regard to the maximum length of closing lines for bays. We must therefore turn to examine treaty law on this subject.At the global level, the rules governing bays were, for the first time, set out in Article 7 of…
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