Abstract:
The subject of ""the scope of the coastal state's sovereignty over its internal and territorial waters in accordance with the 1982 Montegobay Convention on the Law of the Sea"" has been studied by highlighting the provisions of this agreement with regard to the legal system that governs the sovereignty of coastal states over their neighboring coastal waters. Whereas, the agreement recognized the coastal state to exercise its sovereignty over its internal waters and territorial waters, and this recognition resulted in authorizing this state the right to exercise special powers over this part of its maritime space.
Although the internal waters differ in their geographical nature from the land territory of the state, they are subject to the same legal system. The coastal state is completely sovereign and unconditionally, as it alone has the right to determine its own legal system, by subjecting foreign ships to the measures that taken in this regard, while this country exercises its sovereignty over its territorial waters, restricting the right of foreign ships to innocent passage, The latter is considered a right for foreign countries and not a license, and this restriction was decided in favor of international navigation, and the issue of passage in territorial waters and the position of foreign ships inside them is one of the most complex issues that burdened the third conference, but the general agreement was able to resolve the circle of dispute between countries In this region, especially in the area of conflict of jurisdiction on the criminal and civil sides, as well as the field of maritime border control problems and disputes, and the movement of ships on the level of these waters, it provided consensual solutions and unified the vision by establishing various legal rules from which no state should evade on the pretext of Its internal laws and this is according to the supremacy of international law over internal law
