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6. The Following is Our Viewpoint.
There are two meanings of “peaceful purpose” or “peaceful use” as indicated by international conventions concluded before the 1982 UNCLOS. The first meaning is “complete non-military use”, such as the Antarctic Treaty (December 1, 1959). Article 1 of the Treaty stipulates that the Antarctic area is preserved for peaceful purposes and all measures of military characteristics including establishing military bases, building fortifications, holding military maneuvers and carrying out tests of any kind of weapons are prohibited”. It is thus clear that so far as this treaty is concerned, “peaceful purpose”means prohibiting all measures or activities of military characteristics. The second meaning is prohibiting some listed military measures or activities, such as the Outer Space Treaty (January 27, 1969). This Treaty states that “outer Space shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes”, and Article 4 of the treaty lists prohibited military activities.
In the 1960s and 1970s, when the UN Seabed Committee discussed the issue of peaceful use of seabed, there were two viewpoints regarding the meaning of “peaceful purpose”. One was that “peaceful purpose”meant non-militarization，i.e., prohibiting the use of the seabed for any military purpose. The other meaning was that the decisive factor of whether it was a ‘peaceful purpose’ was whether the military activities were defensive or whether the military activities complied with the principles of international law embodied in the UN Charter.
At the third Conference of UNCLOS, there were similar viewpoints expressed. Ecuador and the United States could be considered representative of each of these two groups. At the 1976 New York Session of the Conference, the Ecuadorian representative proposed that the use of maritime space only for peaceful purposes must mean complete non-militarization, ruling out all military activities. He also recommended that the future Convention on the Law of the Sea must give a clear-cut definition to the concept of peaceful use, provide a guarantee for preventing the use of maritime space for nuclear confrontation, and stipulation that non-peaceful use is illegal. The American representative alleged that the term peaceful purpose does not rule out military activities in general. Indeed, the United States has persistently maintained that carrying out military activities for peaceful purposes is entirely in line with the United Nations Charter and principles of international law. At this conference, some countries also proposed that some specific actions should be prohibited to satisfy the “peaceful purpose”requirement such as the establishment and usage of facilities for purposes other than economic reasons in areas under coastal State jurisdiction without permission of that State; the use or threat of use of force; building of military fortifications and bases; conducting nuclear tests and deployment and storage of nuclear weapons, naval exercises and rocket tests; the display of marine forces; exercising the rights in a manner which threatens the coastal State, and the establishment of security zones on the sea not adjacent to its own territorial sea. However, because of the opposition of the then two superpowers, the issue was shelved.
The 1982 UNCLOS applies the principle of “peaceful uses” of the sea to different sea areas and activities in the following ways.
· The first is to define, elaborate and blend the principle of “peaceful uses” of the sea into specific marine activities. For example, Article 19 stipulates: “passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State”; passage of a foreign ship shall be considered to be prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State if in the territorial sea it engages in any of the following activities: (a) any threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal State, or in any other manner in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations; (b) any exercise or practice with weapons of any kind; (c) any act aimed at collecting information to the prejudice of the defense or security of the coastal State; (d) any act of propaganda aimed at affecting the defense or security of the coastal State; (e) the launching, landing or taking on board of any aircraft; (f) the launching, landing or taking on board of any military device; (h) any act of willful and serious pollution contrary to this Convention; (j) the carrying out of research or survey activities; (k) any act aimed at interfering with any systems of communication or any other facilities or installations of the coastal State; (l) any other activity not having a direct bearing on passage. We hold that Article 19 is the only article in UNCLOS which elaborately defines the principle of peaceful uses of the sea.
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