Poroshenko signs law expanding Ukraine’s zone of control in Black Sea
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed the law “On Ukraine’s surrounding zone,” which doubles the country’s zone of control in the Black Sea, the presidential press service reported.
The law harmonizes Ukraine’s maritime legislation with that of other states on the Black Sea and other signatories of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982. It is intended to prevent smuggling operations and illegal visitation of the closed ports in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
“According to the law, Ukraine’s surrounding zone is the open sea zone that surrounds Ukraine’s territorial sea and whose border is at a distance no greater than 24 nautical miles, calculated from the baselines, from which the breadth of Ukraine’s territorial sea is measured,” the report states.
In its surrounding zone, Ukraine will implement the control needed to prevent violations of national customs, fiscal (tax), immigration (migration) and sanitary legislation within Ukraine’s territory, including its internal waters or territorial sea.
The law stipulates that, if a vessel violates Ukrainian legislation and attempts to escape, the competent authority is entitled to engage in hot pursuit in order to arrest it and prosecute it according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The right to pursue ends when the vessel being pursued enters the territorial waters of the country whose flag it is flying, or any other third country.
The law will come into force the day after its publication.
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, ratified the law On Ukraine’s surrounding zone (bill No. 8361) in its entirety on December 6, 2018. The law in question is a framework for future amendments to a number of legislative acts, including Ukraine’s Criminal Procedure Code.