France already controls 11 million square kilometers of the world's oceans, second only to the US. Now they want more, demanding the equivalent of three Germanys all in one gulp. It's part of a rush to divvy up the world's oceans by this time next year. Oil reserves are running out, gas prices are soaring. France's government is reacting to the dwindling energy supply much like Russia and Great Britain: the government is laying claim to vast stretches of the world's oceans. In France's case, the claims span the globe: from French Guyana in South America to Africa and across the Indian Ocean. Paris would like to see its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) -- defined by international law as the ocean extending 200 nautical miles, or 370 kilometers, off a state's coasts -- expanded by almost a million square kilometers. That's three times as big as Germany, according to researcher Walter Roest of the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFRMER) in Brest. Like many other states, the French government will be arguing in the next year that its geographic features in many cases extend far beyond the 370 kilometer zone. At most, that could mean an extension of its EEZ to 650 kilometers past the coastline. Right now, France claims more than 11 million square kilometers of the world's oceans -- the second largest in the world, after the United States.
France already controls 11 million square kilometers of the world's oceans, second only to the US. Now they want more, demanding the equivalent of three Germanys all in one gulp. It's part of a rush to divvy up the world's oceans by this time next year.
Oil reserves are running out, gas prices are soaring. France's government is reacting to the dwindling energy supply much like Russia and Great Britain: the government is laying claim to vast stretches of the world's oceans. In France's case, the claims span the globe: from French Guyana in South America to Africa and across the Indian Ocean.
Paris would like to see its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) -- defined by international law as the ocean extending 200 nautical miles, or 370 kilometers, off a state's coasts -- expanded by almost a million square kilometers. That's three times as big as Germany, according to researcher Walter Roest of the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFRMER) in Brest.
Like many other states, the French government will be arguing in the next year that its geographic features in many cases extend far beyond the 370 kilometer zone. At most, that could mean an extension of its EEZ to 650 kilometers past the coastline. Right now, France claims more than 11 million square kilometers of the world's oceans -- the second largest in the world, after the United States.
Won't global warming cause "massive expansion" of the oceans too?
