The US Navy announced that it conducted a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in Indian waters without prior consent. 

What is freedom of navigation operation (FONOP)?

• FONOP is closely linked to the concept of freedom of navigation, and in particular to the enforcement of relevant international law and customs regarding freedom of navigation. 

• The drafting of the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was driven in part by States’ concerns that strong national maritime interests could lead to excessive maritime claims over coastal seas, which could threaten freedom of navigation.

• FONOP is a method of enforcing UNCLOS and avoiding these negative outcomes by reinforcing freedom of navigation through practice, using ships to sail through all areas of the sea permitted under UNCLOS, and in particular those areas that States have attempted to close off to free navigation as defined under UNCLOS and international law and custom.

• Freedom of navigation has been thoroughly practiced and refined, and ultimately codified and accepted as international law under UNCLOS, in a legal process that was inclusive and consent-based. 

• FONOPs are outgrowths of this development of international law, based on sovereign equality and international interdependence.

The US 7th Fleet

The 7th Fleet is the largest of the US Navy’s forward deployed fleets. There are roughly 50-70 ships and submarines, 150 aircraft, and approximately 20,000 sailors in the 7th Fleet.

Row over FONOP 

According to a statement by US Navy, on April 7, 2021, USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) asserted navigational rights and freedoms approximately 130 nautical miles west of the Lakshadweep Islands, inside India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), without prior consent, consistent with international law. 

India has conveyed concerns to Washington through diplomatic channels.

The ministry of external affairs (MEA) contested the US Navy’s 7th Fleet statement that the freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) by the guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones “upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses” of the sea recognised in international law by challenging India’s “excessive maritime claims”. 

India’s stated position on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is that the Convention does not authorise other States to carry out in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and on the continental shelf, military exercises or manoeuvres, in particular those involving the use of weapons or explosives, without the consent of the coastal state.

What is the EEZ? 

• The concept of the exclusive economic zone is one of the most important pillars of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea.

• In the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State has sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil, and with regard to other activities for the economic exploitation and exploration of the zone, such as the production of energy from the water, currents and winds.

• It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles (nmi) from the coast of the state in question. 

• The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit. 

• The difference between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone is that the first confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the second is merely a “sovereign right” which refers to the coastal state’s rights below the surface of the sea.

The EEZ of India

• In 1976, India enacted the Territorial Waters, Continental Shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone and Other Maritime Zones Act 1976 that followed its incorporation in Article 297 of Chapter III, Part XII of the Constitution with the introduction of the concept of the EEZ. 

• The EEZ of India “is an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial waters, and the limit of such zone is 200 nautical miles from the baseline”.

• India’s “limit of the territorial waters is the line every point of which is at a distance of twelve nautical miles from the nearest point of the appropriate baseline”. 

• Under the 1976 law, “all foreign ships (other than warships including sub-marines and other underwater vehicles) shall enjoy the right of "innocent passage" through the territorial waters.

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