History of the law of the sea narrates the struggles for and against the doctrine of free seas. The oceans have been fished and navigated for millennia. Centuries before history was ever recorded, coastal states were engaged in free navigation and maritime trade in the Indian Ocean. According to some historians, the commerce between India and Babylon were carried out as early as 3000 B C. Even in Europe, it was also a recognised rule in Rhodian maritime code which was unequivocally adopted in Roman Law and practised for centuries before the Christian era.

After the disintegration of the Roman Empire, the Rhodian tradition of the freedom of the high seas came to be debated. But it was not until the end of the second world war in 1945 when the freedom of the high seas came to be seriously questioned. President Truman on September 28, 1945 made the twin declarations relating to fisheries and continental shelf extending the coastal jurisdiction to areas of the high seas adjoining the coasts of the United States. It immediately unleashed a series of divergent standpoints by different maritime nations on the territorial sea, fisheries, continental shelf and other issues of the law of the sea. In an endeavour to end the resulting impasse, the United Nations through the International Law Commission convened a conference in 1958 which came to be known as the Geneva Conventions or United Nations Conventions on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS-I). The four conventions that were opened for signature of UNCLOS-I in 1958 effectively codified the international customary law on the sea existing till that point of time. However, it left a number of issues unsettled. States were selective in becoming party to the conventions and with advancing technology continued to exploit resources beyond the limits envisaged in the conventions.

It was only in 1980, with the Vienna Convention, the law of the sea had been evolved into a hard law from soft law. The UNCLOS-III had consolidated all past treaties, codified customary law and put in place new law for new issues. It was a global agreement as for the first time even land locked states were addressed in maritime affairs.

By the end of nineteenth century `Freedom of the High Seas' became established as a fundamental principle of international law and were divided into zones of maritime jurisdiction. Each of these zones had further been subjected to varying `control and regulations' by specifying rights and responsibilities of all states.

The freedom of navigation by a flag state, through coastal state territorial waters continues to exist as part of international customary law but in a more controlled and regulated manner by the coastal state. Unthinkable environmental damage has turned to reality in certain parts of the world with oil tanker disasters like the Exxon Valdez and Torrey Canyon. Economically, exploiting and controlling the mineral wealth of the oceans has become a necessity for the sustenance of the world economies. Politically, a host of nations, particularly coastal nations have gained their independence. Besides, the global reach of organised transactional crime and its evasion of national controls challenge every nation's economic well being, social stability and political peace.

However, the effectiveness of control and regulation depends not only upon establishing jurisdiction in the coastal state legislation but actually exercising such jurisdiction in practice.

There must be a recognition in India that we have interests and obligations in coastal and marine activities occurring within our maritime zones of jurisdiction. Managing the multiple activities in our maritime zones require a range of potential responses - operational, political, legal and non-governmental for which India must maintain or have access to capabilities for surveillance, monitoring and control. This will enable India to effectively meet the responsibilities and challeges to marine resource management, environmental protection, marine safety, illegal activity and maritime sovereignty.

The International Court of Justice rulings in the 1950s implied a certain priority of the coastal states' preferential rights of fishing in waters adjacent to its coast while recognising the concurrent historical rights or interests of foreign fishing states. This was largely due to the need to introduce some mechanism over the allowable catch and sharing of the resources with an overarching view to preserve the fish stocks. The notion of the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) thus began to be conceived by the establishment of the exclusive fishing zone as a zone separate from the territorial sea.

The rapid pace of technological, environmental, economic and more importantly political changes altered the equation of relationship at sea. Technological advances brought in the need to monitor sea traffic. Two thirds of the world populace is expected to be living near the coastline by 2025.