Introduction to the law of maritime cabotage

Maritime cabotage is an area of maritime and shipping law that is traditionally concerned with the controlling powers of a sovereign state over her territorial waters. This is normally 12 nautical miles from the country’s baseline, although we shall see in later chapters that some countries have extended their cabotage laws beyond the scope of the territorial sea. As a result, many coastal states opt to reserve maritime activities in their territorial seas to their national instrumentalities of commerce. The autonomy of states to determine how they wish to control maritime activities in their territorial waters means that the law of maritime cabotage is applied disparately in various maritime jurisdictions.