2.6.1 Geographical scope relevant to boundary delimitation or undelimited zone issues
Those arrangements establishing one or more maritime boundaries (see section 2.5 above) first define the position of the boundary. The location of any special zone established in relation to the fisheries jurisdiction boundary is then also defined. For example, the River Plate Treaty defines its common fishing zone in terms of circumferential arcs of a given radius with centres at specified points, while the Faroes/UK Agreement defines the boundary of its “Special Area” using coordinates in a schedule.
Where this zone is simply superimposed on the established boundary such that the boundary remains in place in the background (e.g. River Plate Treaty’s common fishing zone), the arrangement can usually proceed by referring to each party’s waters within that zone. However, where the zone is a solution to some uncertainty over the boundary such that there is no boundary in place in the background (e.g. the Faroes/UK Agreement “Special Area”), the arrangement will refer to the zone by its name but will obviously avoid references to the parties’ waters within that zone.
Those arrangements that do not delimit any maritime boundary but instead identify special zones that are to some extent as yet undelimited between the parties (see section 2.5 above), take a variable approach to identifying the zone. The Japan/China Agreement and the Trinidad and Tobago/Venezuela Agreement both identify the zone concerned with a list of coordinates. In contrast, the Halibut Convention refers to “boundary regions” but makes no attempt to define these further. In all cases, because there is no boundary in place in the background, each arrangement refers to the zone by its name but avoids references to the parties’ waters within that zone.