This chapter examines the rise of the Mughal and Qing empires, which together forged a template for rule that would define Asian and Western approaches to empire in the Old World down to the twentieth century. Mughal and Manchu conquest elites succeeded in establishing and maintaining rule over vastly more prosperous, populous and culturally sophisticated subject populations during the early modern era. They did so through strategies of define and conquer and define and rule, entailing the extensive customization and repurposing of indigenous normative and institutional resources for imperial ends. Imperial elites creatively remixed these resources, both to create local constituencies in favour of ‘barbarian’ rule, and also to generate the coercive reserves of hard power needed to defend their empires from internal and external hard challenges. Finally, rulers in both empires then stabilized their power through the establishment of distinct diversity regimes, which institutionalized existing practices of define and rule, while blocking the potential rise of anti-imperial coalitions.

In the absence of delimitation, there are competing sets of sovereignty or sovereign rights of two States over the same area, which also imply exclusivity. This lies at the heart of why possible conflicts may occur between States. Different variants of overlapping claims can occur between States: that is, as regards internal waters, territorial seas, contiguous zones, EEZs, (extended) continental shelves and archipelagic waters. Varying with the type of disputed maritime zone involved, specific international law questions arise. Both claimant coastal States and third States can be affected by the existence of disputed maritime areas. For claimant States, questions arise around the extent to which rights can, and obligations have to, be exercised. For third States, or their nationals, questions arise concerning how to exercise rights that may have been obtained from one claimant State, and what obligations they must observe when acting, or seeking to act, in a disputed area. As State practice exemplifies, where a claimant, or a national of a third State, has undertaken unilateral conduct in a disputed maritime area, for example concerning mineral resources or fisheries, which regularly prompts the other claimant into responding – including, by taking law enforcement measures.

Chapter 3 examines the general rules of international law that apply in disputed maritime areas. First, it focuses on the possibility of whether a conflict arising in disputed maritime areas can come to threaten international peace and security. Coastal States have approached the UN Security Council on a number of occasions, seeking declarations from it to the effect that as a result of unilateral conduct in disputed areas, a situation had arisen which met the threshold of that international peace and security was put in jeopardy. Further, other relevant general rules under international law, some of which by their nature are related to the treaty obligation of Articles 74(3) and 83(3) LOSC not to hamper or jeopardise (e.g. not aggravating or extending a dispute and the prohibition on abuse of rights), and their status (e.g. are they customary international law rules?) as well as their applicability to disputed maritime areas are explored. The chapter also discusses the possibility of engaging international responsibility, if certain unilateral activities that have been undertaken in disputed areas resulted in a breach of international law.

Disputes where title over high-tide features or mainland territory is disputed are not uncommon in the international legal landscape. Two sets of overlapping claims are created in disputes in which the issues of dispute to title and disputed waters are combined: one set that pertains to the land territory as such, and the other to the maritime zones the land territory is entitled to. Sovereignty claims by States to a high-tide feature or land territory are almost invariably followed by making claims to the maritime zones that they are entitled to, thereby creating a second layer of overlapping claims that relate to the adjacent waters. But what are the rights and obligations of States in disputed waters located off disputed land territory? This chapter establishes the implications that follow from that there is a combination of the elements of sovereignty and the claiming of maritime zones from the same basepoints of a disputed land territory, for identifying the applicable legal framework in disputed waters off its coast. For example, the applicability of Articles 74(3) and 83(3) LOSC is limited in cases where claims are measured from the same disputed land territory, creating disputed waters in the process.

This chapter introduces the book’s central puzzle, makes the case for considering Western imperialism through systematic comparison with its Asian predecessors and contemporaries, and previews the book’s central argument. I argue that the literature on international hierarchy and empires has neglected critical parallels between Western and Asian empire-building in the early modern period. Mughal, Manchu and British empire-builders each confronted significant barriers to conquest, in the form of cultural marginality and demographic insignificance relative to indigenous majorities. Each consequently relied on strategies of define and conquer and define and rule to mobilize the vast multicultural coalitions needed for large-scale territorial expansion. These parallels in turn yielded empires that foregrounded the management of cultural diversity – through the incorporation of difference rather than its assimilation – as the chief feature of imperial rule.

This chapter provides the necessary background as to why addressing the issue of the rights and obligations of States prior to delimitation is both pressing and topical. The main objective of the book is to lay out the rights and obligations of States (i.e. claimants and third States) under international law in disputed maritime areas. Particular emphasis in this regard is placed on those areas where States have not agreed upon delimitation (a), neither have been able to agree on cooperative arrangements (b), and for which a modus vivendi has not been developed to regulate activities in a disputed maritime area (c). Apart from that, States are obligated to take certain (unilateral) measures in disputed areas. This is because entitlements to maritime zones come with related obligations for the coastal State regarding certain issues. For instance, with regard to managing and conserving living marine resources, as well as protecting the marine environment, coastal States have significant obligations under the LOSC. Another issue that is discussed is how jurisdictional uncertainty, which is inherent to disputed maritime areas, affects claimant States, third States and their nationals.

This chapter lays out a novel framework for conceptualising the water-relevant binding and non-binding instruments of the UNECE environmental conventions as one common normative regional environmental regime – an original contribution. In exploring the idea of a single regime, this chapter seeks to overcome a strictly positivist view of international law and understand the relevance of overlapping and/or non-uniform state membership of the UNECE legal instruments. It explores regionalism and regional approaches to international law and examines the relationship of the UNECE regime to international law and other international institutions. It sets out a framework for determining the UNECE regime’s relationship to general international law and other international water treaties – asking whether the regime lex specialis – a theme returned to throughout the remainder of the book. This chapter sets out a framework for exploring the making, implementation and enforcement of international law in the UNECE regime, which is employed throughout the research. This frame contributes to understanding around systemic integration, mutually supportive interpretation and cross-fertilisation in international environmental law and international law relevant to transboundary freshwater ecosystems.

This chapter first appraises the rules of international law that are applicable to disputed territorial sea areas. Article 12 1958 CTS, whose wording is essentially repeated in Article 15 LOSC, provides as follows: historic titles and special circumstances allow States to extend their claim beyond the equidistance boundary; in the absence thereof, the equidistance boundary divides the area of overlapping territorial sea claims. At UNCLOS III, only limited debates occurred in relation to disputed territorial sea areas. As Article 15 LOSC is limited in its sphere of operation once a State invokes historic title or special circumstances, the following question arises: do other rules of international law exert their influence either alongside the interim rule contained in this provision; or when it is inapplicable, what alternative rules can be invoked as a substitute in disputed territorial sea areas? Disputed contiguous zones areas may arise outside the 12 nautical miles limit of the territorial sea. Whereas the issue of an interim rule for overlapping contiguous zone claims was addressed in Article 24(3) 1958 CTS, stipulating that the entitlements of States to a claimed contiguous zone would automatically extend up to the equidistance boundary, the LOSC abandoned this approach.

This chapter examines Article 6 1958 CSC and Articles 74(3) and 83(3) LOSC with a view towards ascertaining the extent to which these provisions set out a rule governing the conduct of unilateral activities in disputed EEZ and continental shelf areas. Article 6 1958 CSC, is the forerunner to the provision in the LOSC, is developed on the basis of equidistance: States are not entitled to extend their continental shelf beyond the equidistance boundary – that is, assuming there are no special circumstances. Articles 74(3)/83(3) LOSC lays down two obligations that are geared towards two different purposes: cooperation and abstention. The cooperative aspect is formed by the fact that States must seek provisional arrangements. The aspect of abstention is exemplified in that the States concerned must refrain from unilateral conduct that hampers or jeopardises EEZ/continental shelf delimitation. These two obligations arise conjointly in some, but not all, disputed EEZ/continental shelf areas. A dual function underlies the obligation not to hamper or jeopardise: first, it places limitations on the scope for coastal States to actively undertake unilateral acts; and, second, the obligation curtails the ways in which States can respond to activities undertaken in a disputed area.

This chapter presents the book’s research design and central argument. I begin by considering accounts of the ‘rise of the West’ that explain Western expansion through reference to European exceptionalism, global logics of uneven and combined development, or the facilitating role of local networks and patterns of collective identity in enabling colonial conquest. Having critiqued these accounts, I then advocate an alternative Eurasia-centric approach that stresses the vital parallels and interconnections between ‘barbarian’ Mughal, British and Manchu conquests in early modern South and East Asia. A combination of military, economic, cultural and administrative developments across Eurasia made it easier for ‘barbarians’ to conquer and preserve empires on a subcontinental scale. After 1500, formerly stigmatized outsiders from Eurasia’s steppe, sea and forest frontiers capitalized on these opportunities to carve out the empires that eventually crystallized into the modern post-imperial states of India and China. These empires emerged from ‘barbarian’ efforts to overcome similar challenges, and yielded strikingly similar incorporative ideologies and models of imperial governance.

This chapter considers the parallel crises that convulsed the British Raj and the Qing Dynasty in the mid-nineteenth century, and that radically reconstituted international orders in both South and East Asia. The chapter proceeds in five sections. The first section presents a comparative overview of the British Raj and the Qing Empire in c. 1820. The second section then outlines the commercial and ideational pressures that propelled an attempted transformation of the EIC’s mode of rule in India, as well as stoking British commercial and military expansion into Qing-dominated East Asia. The third and fourth sections then explore liberalism’s corrosive impact on both the British Raj and the Qing Empire, detailing the crises that nearly destroyed both empires in the mid-nineteeth century. The fifth section concludes with a comparative examination of international orders in South and East Asia after 1860. The mid-century crises of empire that the chapter examines put paid to British attempts to coercively ‘civilize’ Asian polities for a generation, locking in conservative and incorporative diversity regimes that sustained the Raj and the Qing Dynasty down to their destruction in the twentieth century.