What is UNCLOS ? Explain its salient features. (Answer in 250 words)

- What is UNCLOS ? Explain its salient features. (Answer in 250 words)
Introduction
Adopted at Montego Bay on 10 December 1982 and in force from 16 November 1994, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is the framework treaty for all uses of ocean space. Tommy Koh called it a constitution for the oceans.

Body
1. Origin and additions: negotiated at the Third UN Conference (1973-82) as a package deal, supplemented by the 1994 Part XI Agreement, the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement and the BBNJ Agreement (2023), signed by India in September 2024.
2. Zones of jurisdiction: a twelve-mile territorial sea under sovereignty, a twenty-four-mile contiguous zone for customs and immigration, a two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone giving sovereign rights over resources but not sovereignty, and a shelf extendable to 350 miles via the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
3. Navigation regimes: innocent passage in the territorial sea, transit passage through straits, archipelagic sea lanes passage, and freedom of navigation and overflight on the high seas.
4. The Area: the deep seabed beyond national jurisdiction is the common heritage of mankind under Article 136, administered by the International Seabed Authority at Kingston.
5. Environment and science: Part XII obliges states to protect the marine environment; Parts XIII and XIV govern marine research and technology transfer.
6. Dispute settlement: Part XV makes settlement compulsory, with a choice among the Tribunal at Hamburg, the ICJ and arbitration, subject to Article 298 opt-outs China invoked in 2006.
7. Practice: India ratified in 1995 and accepted the adverse Bay of Bengal award (2014); China rejects the 2016 South China Sea award, the treaty's sharpest test.

Conclusion
UNCLOS supplies near-universal rules with weak compulsion. Its authority depends on major powers — including a United States that signed but never ratified — choosing to remain bound.