Limiting Third States' Military Activities in the eez: 'Due Regard Obligations' and the Law on the Use of Force Applied to Nuclear Weapons

摘要

The aim of this article is to contribute to the general analysis of 'due regard obligations, through their articulation with branches of international law other than the law of the sea. More specifically, it focuses on the law of military activities at sea, as governed by international law on the use of force and nuclear weapons. It is argued here that the scope of the Law of the Sea Convention's 'due regard obligations' cannot be examined in a vacuum, but should rather, to the extent possible, be interpreted in conformity with other related sources of international law. Reciprocally, this paper shows that some rules of jus ad bellum and jus in bello applicable to the use of nuclear weapons in a third state's exclusive economic zone, fail to consider other simultaneously applicable obligations, which could well be grasped through the prism of 'due regard'.