March 10, 2009 • 23 mins
International waters cover 71% of the Earth's surface, and a separate set of laws and regulations govern human activity on the seas. But who actually owns the oceans? Listen and find out in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know?
From House Stuff Works dot com? Are and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck, Chuck, and we are
happy to be here. Agreed. That was a terrible Chuck
with a terrible point. You're the one that started. I know,
(00:22):
I'm just kidding. This is stuff you should know a
k a. The Happy Pirate Hour, right right, um, although
we're not pirates and they's never run an hour, but Chuck,
the reason I said argue is because I wanted to
know if you knew about these, uh, these pirates in Somalia.
Have you heard about this? I read a little bit
(00:43):
about that was the summer or was it in the fall?
Oh it's still going on, but yeah, this passing this
past summer and fall, they were at their peak. They
got they captured a hundred million dollars with the Saudi
Oil Um. They captured a cargo vessel with thirty Russian
tank on it. They've been making millions of dollars holding
these things for ransom. They're getting increasingly sophisticated. The British
(01:06):
Navy went head to head with um, like a small
fishing boat of ten of them. UM. And after they
finally captured these guys, they went on board. They were
assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers. Like these guys are
there like modern day pirates. It's in a weird but
it's kind of cool. But at the same time, pirates,
you know, they should they should send Bill Murray. Did
(01:28):
you see The Life Aquatic? Yes, pirates, modern modern pirates
in that movie, and they had forgotten about that aspect.
That's what I picture actually really, yeah, but that's kind
of what they're like. You know. It's not the days
of the skull and crossbones and well no, not anymore.
There's very few peg legs aboard these ships, I imagine.
But actually Africa has long been a place for piracy.
(01:51):
I mean this goes back centuries. Actually red Beards. They
were actually two brothers, the brothers Barbarossa. They established piracy
and other in Africa. Um. They were Turks and they
were battling the Spanish Christians across the way, and there
was a lot of really evil deeds done to one
another from both sides. Actually, I'm a black Beard guy,
(02:11):
are you? He was didn't he various his his booty.
Uh in the outer banks? Uh, maybe not too far away.
I know that that Discovery Channel showed Treasure quest like
all these modern day treasure hunters they can it's gotten
much more sophisticated, and they're starting to find a lot
of these shipwrecks with tons of lute. So finding uh
(02:34):
old pirates is becoming as as sophisticated as modern pirates are.
You know the correlations, Yeah, although correlation is not causation, Chuck.
That's what I that's what I've learned. Okay, So these
pirates were really having it free and easy, um, and
they were being they were very successful. Um. And one
(02:55):
of the reasons why is because nobody wanted to capture
him because they didn't who would prosecute them? Well, right,
they're they're acting like they own the oceans. Well, the
number one, their country doesn't have a functioning central government
right now, it hasn't since the nineties, right, But number two,
as you said, and I'm so sorry to step all
over your segue because it's so good. Do you want
(03:16):
to say it again, Josh, they're acting as if they
own the oceans. You know what, Chuck? They do in
a sense, and so do you, So do you, Chuck,
and so do all of you out there in podcast land.
We all own the oceans. It is the heritage of
all mankind, as the UN puts it. We'll get to
that a little later. But yeah, So these Somali pirates
are being shuffled around from nation to nation. Kenya's prosecuting
(03:40):
a lot of them, but really it's not clear whether
that anybody has jurisdiction over them, right, um, But yeah,
so we all own the oceans, right and the waters
off of Somalia have been declared the High Seas, which
makes them international waters, which means everybody owns them. There
are portions of the ocean that bowl that not everyone owns,
(04:02):
right the right, So you want to talk a little
bit about the history. All of this is just so cryptic.
Let's really get down to the nuts and bolts here.
Sure they they figured this out over the course of
the past, what a couple of hundred years? Well, there
there have been treaties dating back to the ancient Romans.
Well yeah, but they were very localized in regional This
is like the oceans. But yeah, that's a couple of
(04:24):
hundred years. Yes, I guess the first one was the
Freedom of the Seas Doctrine a k a. The Law
of the sea right. Not to be confused with the
custom of the sea, which was basically protocol for cannibalism
during a shipwright and not to be confused with chicken
of the sea, which is which and not Yeah, it's
not chicken. Uh. Yeah. So the Freedom of the Seas
(04:45):
doctrine was kind of the first one, and basically that
granted exclusive rights, uh for a three mile buffer of
ocean that abutted your coastline. Right, And we still have those.
It's called territorial seas right, but it's expanded quite a
bit since it has UM. And but the the territorial
see whether it's a three miles or um. You know,
however many miles it is now, which will get too
(05:07):
later we don't want to ruin the surprise and how
how far off shore a territorial sea goes now, But
basically it's um. It's an extension of the sovereign soil
of a nation, a coastal nation. UM. So if a
ship sails into that and they're acting a little belligerent,
they want to shoot their cannons off or whatever, that's
an active war. It's it's tantamount to invading that nation soil, right,
(05:29):
And that actually got us into a couple of wars, right,
it did. We we took not the big one, that's
World War two, No, World War one, World War one.
War of eighteen twelve. World War one was the sinking
of the Lusitania UM. And one of the reasons that
drewis in is because an attack on another country's vessels
in international waters, which is everything outside of the um
(05:52):
the territorial waters, which is most of the ocean, right um,
that is an active war as well. So British the
British vessels capturing American sailors provoked the War of eighteen twelve,
and the Lusitania being sunk by the Germans is Germans um.
That was that was what caused World War one in
large part. After that, the United States, I love that
(06:15):
we were the ones that said, you know what, three
miles isn't gonna cut it. We want two hundred miles.
And in ninety five we just kind of declared that. So, yeah,
the Great Sea Grab of forty five I like to
call it, basically what happened um for three hundred years
the law of the sea. It was in uh unofficial agreement,
an unofficial treat So the fact that it lasted three
(06:36):
years is pretty significant. But by one of the reasons
that lasted so long is because we didn't have the
capabilities to draw things like oh, I don't know, oil,
natural gas, huge commercial fishing operations were up yet. Um.
But by the mid twentieth century we started to develop
these capabilities, and so under pressure from oil company these UM,
(07:01):
Truman actually just said, you know what, UM, I'm going
to unilaterally extend the US's territorial waters two hundred miles
from three miles to two d miles. I got a
stat for you, I want to hear it. Speaking of oil, Uh,
nineteen fifty four, we were only pulling out less than
one million tons of oil per year from the ocean, right,
(07:22):
from all the oceans combined. Right, that's right. And by
the end of the nineteen sixties, which you know nine
that that much further along, almost four hundred million tons
per year. Right, So these things had had increased in value.
Our sophistication and removing them from the bottom of the
sea had increased, right, Um, And all of a sudden,
instead of just some ships passing, you know, loaded with
(07:44):
cigarettes for going from one country to another. That this
was the sea became a really much a much busier
place because by that ton Yeah, that's because there's a
lot of money to be had, agreed. I have another
stat I want to hear. Uh. In two thousand four,
which was a short time ago, the United States alone
UH generated sixty three billion dollars worth of wages paid
(08:07):
out for oceanic activities. So in just one year in
just the United States. Absolutely wow. So let's say, okay,
so it is it's big business, right, big time. And uh,
I imagine that's probably worth even more now with with
I can't imagine how much oil we're drawing out now
four years later, it's probably yeah, a lot more so. Um.
(08:28):
So clearly everybody kind of wants as much of these
resources as they can get. Which was the two hundred
mile sea grab that the US kicked off, A whole
lot of other countries followed suit immediately. It was just
a mess. Right, well they're doing it, I want yeah,
so um and a lot of these overlapped you know
what I mean, Like, think of Cuba, because not two
(08:49):
hundred miles from the US. So there's all there's just
a big mess, lots of ramification. And because it was
an informal treaty, the Law of the Sea, UM, nobody
could say anything really right. Even worse now that we're
drawing all these resources out the in over fishing, in
commercial fisheries, UM, nobody wants. Everybody wants the resources, but
(09:09):
nobody wants the responsibility of taking care of the oceans,
right and over fishing is a huge problem right now.
So right sure, And and one of the reasons why
is because of that there weren't any um any you know,
I guess treaties with teeth in place until yeah, the
(09:31):
the Maltese ambassador of the U n one Arvid Pardo,
finally stood up and said, wait, we must do something
about this is out of hand. Everybody's going nuts. I'm
looking at you United States, UM. And he suggested that
they have a convention, and what came out of that
was the Convention of the Law of the Sea right
and makes a lot of you know, I can't believe
(09:52):
it took a that long to officially do this. Yeah
that he he said it in sixty seven. In the
convention UH was finally ratified in eighty two and then
didn't come into force until ninety four, So it took
that long just to get this thing. Well that's the
that's the u n for you. They're not a fast
moving body, you know, is what they are kind of.
(10:12):
So at least they did this, thank you to Mr Pardo.
By the way. Yes, and one of one of the
it had several um provisions to it. One of the
things that did was it it um codified the law
of the sea, the territorial sea, well, the law of
the see the original treaty, the original agreement that number one,
the oceans really belonged to everybody. Um. It it um
(10:37):
set up an international maritime tribunal for complaints and you know,
um doling out revenge that kind of thing. Um. And uh,
it also is that well also we finally get to
that that mystery fact. You ready. It extended territorial waters
from three miles to twelve nautical miles, which is thirteen
(10:57):
point eight regular land miles, right, which are my favorite
kind of miles. Don't even ask me how many kilometers
that is because I'm an American. Um, So we don't
we don't play that way. No, we don't we're the
only people in the world who don't too. And I
remember when I remember when I was in elementary school
the metric system. You know, we had to study it
because we're gonna go to the metric system very very soon.
(11:18):
I think, Yeah, I remember that I was in the womb. Yeah,
what a joke, So nice chuck by American. UM. One
of the other things that it did was established exclusive
economic zones. Right, you want to talk about these, yeah,
eas s Basically, UM, if territory of waters extend our
(11:39):
states laws to rights of defense, eases basically are our
right to resources. Right, we're talking what we were just saying,
fisheries oilll that kind of thing. And how far do
they go? They go two hundred miles, so that's really substantial,
right and and uh so basically it said, okay, you
can have you can attack somebody if they come within
(12:00):
twelve nautical miles of your shore. You can't attack anybody
out there, but if there's somebody mining in your easy,
you can come to the International Tribune and we'll doll
out some revenge for you. Right. Um. So a lot
of people already had basically what amounted to an easy
and after the after the sea grab of n And
(12:23):
basically they were using the continental slope as the as
the boundary, right, because that's where there's a continental shelf
that goes from shore to the continental slope. And this
is a relatively shallow like six fifty feet or something,
which doesn't sound shallow to me. But once it hits
the slope, you're talking about it going miles down right.
(12:44):
That's frightening to me, right, And I also I want
to make a prediction here, Chuck. Once our technology to
remove natural resources advances enough that we can get it
out of the you know, areas in the continental slope,
there will be yet another sea grab. They'll push it
out even for there agreed at some point they may
just push it out so far that they all connect. Well,
(13:04):
you know that this is good? This is going on
right now, is it? There is another sea grab going
on around the Arctic circle thanks to our friend climate change,
which I think we used to call it global warming,
but they didn't pan out, right, Okay, So climate change
is actually starting to melt the polar ice caps, and
there's an estimated of what remains of the world's natural
(13:27):
gas and oil reserves locked under that ice. The ice
is starting to unlock, so all of a sudden, Canada,
the US, Russia, Norway, I think, Sweden, Denmark, Denmark, they're
all trying to claim um exclusive economic rights to those
and there's basically a race going on, and we're everyone's
using geology now they're they're kind of following the UN's convention.
(13:50):
But uh, the polar Bear, Yeah, no, I mean that's
not true. People do care, but they're disappearing because of
the you know, the ice caps melt. It's sad. Yeah,
they're not gonna have too many places to go very soon,
I imagine. No, And it affects there. I was just
writing about. This is why I brought it up. But
it affects their migrating patterns and their ability to hunt
(14:11):
because they hunt from you know, perched on the ice caps.
They get the seals. Oh yeah, no ice, no hunting.
The other thing to Josh we wanted to mention, or
I wanted to mention, was straights. I love straights. They're
my favorite body of water right, And it's tricky area
because straits are usually um more narrow than the twelve
mile territorial sea rule. So if you have straits that
(14:32):
go between you know, like a five mile straight going
between two countries. What do you do? Uh, you claim
it as international water. That's the only fair thing to do. Yeah,
And that was actually part of the custom and no sorry,
the original right, Yeah, that was that the Convention on
the Law of the Sea from the UN said, Yeah,
(14:52):
we're gonna stick with that through Yeah, pretty cool, agreed, Chuck.
So Chuck, you know you might be thinking at this point, Okay,
this is all well and good for coastal nations, what
about landlocked nations? What about Luxembourg? You know what, Luxembourg
has every right to the international waters as you and
I do. Yes, but how does that help them with oh,
(15:14):
I don't know, things like shipping their landlocked right. Shouldn't
they have some sort of access through their coastal neighbors
territorial waters, unfettered, unmolested. I think so. And I bet
you're about to tell me that they do. They do?
They do? Um, that's uh. I believe that's part of
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Um
(15:34):
that you have to gain you have to allow them
access through your territorial waters to the coast. Um if
your coastal nation, uh, and you can't tax them, you
can't levy tariffs. Basically, it's trying to make it fair. Right.
The problem is is if you are a landlocked country,
it sucks for you. There's all sorts of figures and
(15:56):
statistics that basically show that, especially developing countries they're called UM,
they're called l l d c's landlocked developing countries. They
can't get a leg up because that's there's so many
resources in the ocean that they can't get access to. Well,
it's not just that you remember you said that that
the U s has sixty three billion dollars made from
uh just just aquatic maritime activities. Yeah, right, okay, that's
(16:21):
just wages, right, not not not including economic stimulus of
any kind. UM. But it's not just that people in
landlock developing countries have a life expectancy of about three
and a half years less on average than their coastal
neighbors who are of the same developmental progress yep UM
they have, they make about three times less salary on average,
(16:43):
and UM their volume of trade is about sixty less
than their their coastal neighbors. UM. And one of the
examples I read about was UM the Central African Republic,
which is a landlocked Western African nation. It costs thirteen
thousand dollars to then a shipping container to that country,
you know, the standard ones that go from like train
(17:04):
to ship to whatever. To send it to the Ivory coast,
which is their coastal neighbor. Right there, cost three thousand dollars.
So as a result, landlocked Western African nations are making
about twelve percent of what their coastal neighbors are and
importing exporting revenues. Right. It's a shame, Josh, that these
landlocked countries can't partner up with the coastal nations and
(17:26):
you know, work out some kind of a trade deal,
like maybe they have better land for growing acrop inland.
And in the spirit of you know, global economy, you
should be president of the world, Chuck. I think that's
a fine idea. Um. I have another question, Josh. I
was looking at you know, they've got some underwater hotels
and now I'll be heard of these. Ah it rings
a bell, but I think that maybe from a Simpsons episode.
(17:49):
Now it's actually real. They have one in Dubai that's uh.
I believe it's opening very soon called hydropolis. You know,
Dubai does it all this crazy? I know they're They've
got really great imagining. And there's another one off the
coast of Fiji to set open next year called the
Poseidon Undersea Resort. And these are big, big money. We're
talking like fift hundred bucks a night for a room
(18:10):
and think about the insurance. Uh. These are off the coast,
so they're within the territorial area. But my question, and
I don't have an answer, but my question is, these
are private companies opening these things up, so technically they're
on the land below the sea that belongs to that country.
So I wonder if they had to work out a deal,
(18:30):
like whoever opened up hydropolists had to work out a
deal with the Dubai government. We want this little parcel
of land under the water to build something to create
a lot of revenue, and what kind of rent do
we need to pay? Yeah, they probably have a lease, Um,
like I guess an oil company would have for offshore drilling. Okay,
I guess it makes sense. You know, it's probably very
long and expensive. Interesting stuff. Yeah, Okay, one last thing
(18:54):
I don't I think we would be remiss in getting
out of this podcast. If we didn't name the five oceans,
can you name a Chuck, it's not in the article. Well, Josh,
technically it's all one big ocean because it's all connected. Yes, nice,
try Chuck, you want to try naming the five os
I probably can't do. This is embarrassing. I let's say, Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic.
(19:14):
How many other five? And there's one more you've got?
You got one more to go Arctic in um. Oh,
like it's southern. Yes, it is the Southern Ocean. That's
what's called. Yeah, who knew? Yeah, I had no idea.
I thought there were only four. Oh wow, there's three
continents though, right, well, well we all just soak in
chuck shame. Um, we're going to uh it's a deep pool,
(19:38):
my friends. I think we should go to listen to.
Mail gets you out of this one next. So it's
a great time for listening. So, Josh, this week, we
have a couple of things. We have one I'm just
gonna call correction coup. This is a correction with the
high coup, which is oh nice that we love these.
And then we have an exceptional listener, Mail Lee Santel
or Santelli I'm not sure rot us in with the
(20:00):
correction coup about just the one re released the other
day about Niagara Falls, and you likend a rebreather or
to scuba equipment. You probably knew you were wrong as
soon as it came out of your mouth. No, I thought,
that's the piece that goes in your mouth, No, Josh. Apparently,
a scuba buoyancy control device or b c D exhales
the same carbon dioxy dioxide that the user exhales, which
(20:23):
bubbles to the surface. A rebreather recycles a portion that
the user exhales, and the usable ox reusable oxygen is
rebreathe So basically, um, with a rebreather, you have no bubbles,
which is why the Navy seals exactly. And I think
that's what I was referencing, was Navy seal scuba equipment,
(20:43):
not you know, Joe schmob scuba. Of course in that case,
you were right. And Lee, thanks for nothing, No, just kidding.
Here's a high coup though that Lee put it verycist,
simply swimming under blue passing fishes on the left, don't
forget the air very important. Nice And we have one
more which I fell exceptional fan mail from our friend.
(21:04):
Chrissie is what she calls herself, Christina Cannon and Michigan
and she's a student and her family. They sit around,
let's to our podcast, which is it is so Cool Hello?
And she wrote a little poem and oda how stuff Works.
It goes a little something like this. I used to
listen to cold Play on my daily walks to class,
but those days were finished since the How Stuff Works
(21:27):
podcasts shows are random and funny and make me laugh
out loud a lot. For It's not every day I
learned what is the best place to be shot on?
Behalf of us college students? Thanks for telling us stuff
we should know. I hope you guys have a great
weekend and keep up the wonderful show. So in your face, Coldplay,
I know. So thank you to Chrissie and uh the
(21:47):
other one Lee. All right, thanks to both of you
and everybody who writes in to let us know that
we warm the cockles of your heart because you wore ours.
And if you want to know more about who owns
the ocean, you can type in whom is the ocean
appropriately enough in the handy search bar of our beloved website. Also,
I would recommend going to open democracy dot com and
(22:08):
looking for an article called aiming for the Sea that
argues points about landlocked developing countries. And I took a
couple of stats from now Ashamed to admit right, and Uh.
We would also like to plug our blog, which is
do it Chuck should be now live on the website.
It's the stuff you Should Know blog. And we want
to invite our fans to interact with each other and
talk about things that we talk about. And you know,
(22:30):
it's a smart group of people out there, you guys. Yeah,
And you can actually access that through the house stuff
Works homepage. There's a there's a little portal through there
take you through time and space to me and Chuck
and Uh, if you want to send us an email, Wow,
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(22:53):
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Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know?
From House Stuff Works dot com? Are and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck, Chuck, and we are
happy to be here. Agreed. That was a terrible Chuck
with a terrible point. You're the one that started. I know,
(00:22):
I'm just kidding. This is stuff you should know a
k a. The Happy Pirate Hour, right right, um, although
we're not pirates and they's never run an hour, but Chuck,
the reason I said argue is because I wanted to
know if you knew about these, uh, these pirates in Somalia.
Have you heard about this? I read a little bit
(00:43):
about that was the summer or was it in the fall?
Oh it's still going on, but yeah, this passing this
past summer and fall, they were at their peak. They
got they captured a hundred million dollars with the Saudi
Oil Um. They captured a cargo vessel with thirty Russian
tank on it. They've been making millions of dollars holding
these things for ransom. They're getting increasingly sophisticated. The British
(01:06):
Navy went head to head with um, like a small
fishing boat of ten of them. UM. And after they
finally captured these guys, they went on board. They were
assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers. Like these guys are
there like modern day pirates. It's in a weird but
it's kind of cool. But at the same time, pirates,
you know, they should they should send Bill Murray. Did
(01:28):
you see The Life Aquatic? Yes, pirates, modern modern pirates
in that movie, and they had forgotten about that aspect.
That's what I picture actually really, yeah, but that's kind
of what they're like. You know. It's not the days
of the skull and crossbones and well no, not anymore.
There's very few peg legs aboard these ships, I imagine.
But actually Africa has long been a place for piracy.
(01:51):
I mean this goes back centuries. Actually red Beards. They
were actually two brothers, the brothers Barbarossa. They established piracy
and other in Africa. Um. They were Turks and they
were battling the Spanish Christians across the way, and there
was a lot of really evil deeds done to one
another from both sides. Actually, I'm a black Beard guy,
(02:11):
are you? He was didn't he various his his booty.
Uh in the outer banks? Uh, maybe not too far away.
I know that that Discovery Channel showed Treasure quest like
all these modern day treasure hunters they can it's gotten
much more sophisticated, and they're starting to find a lot
of these shipwrecks with tons of lute. So finding uh
(02:34):
old pirates is becoming as as sophisticated as modern pirates are.
You know the correlations, Yeah, although correlation is not causation, Chuck.
That's what I that's what I've learned. Okay, So these
pirates were really having it free and easy, um, and
they were being they were very successful. Um. And one
(02:55):
of the reasons why is because nobody wanted to capture
him because they didn't who would prosecute them? Well, right,
they're they're acting like they own the oceans. Well, the
number one, their country doesn't have a functioning central government
right now, it hasn't since the nineties, right, But number two,
as you said, and I'm so sorry to step all
over your segue because it's so good. Do you want
(03:16):
to say it again, Josh, they're acting as if they
own the oceans. You know what, Chuck? They do in
a sense, and so do you, So do you, Chuck,
and so do all of you out there in podcast land.
We all own the oceans. It is the heritage of
all mankind, as the UN puts it. We'll get to
that a little later. But yeah, So these Somali pirates
are being shuffled around from nation to nation. Kenya's prosecuting
(03:40):
a lot of them, but really it's not clear whether
that anybody has jurisdiction over them, right, um, But yeah,
so we all own the oceans, right and the waters
off of Somalia have been declared the High Seas, which
makes them international waters, which means everybody owns them. There
are portions of the ocean that bowl that not everyone owns,
(04:02):
right the right, So you want to talk a little
bit about the history. All of this is just so cryptic.
Let's really get down to the nuts and bolts here.
Sure they they figured this out over the course of
the past, what a couple of hundred years? Well, there
there have been treaties dating back to the ancient Romans.
Well yeah, but they were very localized in regional This
is like the oceans. But yeah, that's a couple of
(04:24):
hundred years. Yes, I guess the first one was the
Freedom of the Seas Doctrine a k a. The Law
of the sea right. Not to be confused with the
custom of the sea, which was basically protocol for cannibalism
during a shipwright and not to be confused with chicken
of the sea, which is which and not Yeah, it's
not chicken. Uh. Yeah. So the Freedom of the Seas
(04:45):
doctrine was kind of the first one, and basically that
granted exclusive rights, uh for a three mile buffer of
ocean that abutted your coastline. Right, And we still have those.
It's called territorial seas right, but it's expanded quite a
bit since it has UM. And but the the territorial
see whether it's a three miles or um. You know,
however many miles it is now, which will get too
(05:07):
later we don't want to ruin the surprise and how
how far off shore a territorial sea goes now, But
basically it's um. It's an extension of the sovereign soil
of a nation, a coastal nation. UM. So if a
ship sails into that and they're acting a little belligerent,
they want to shoot their cannons off or whatever, that's
an active war. It's it's tantamount to invading that nation soil, right,
(05:29):
And that actually got us into a couple of wars, right,
it did. We we took not the big one, that's
World War two, No, World War one, World War one.
War of eighteen twelve. World War one was the sinking
of the Lusitania UM. And one of the reasons that
drewis in is because an attack on another country's vessels
in international waters, which is everything outside of the um
(05:52):
the territorial waters, which is most of the ocean, right um,
that is an active war as well. So British the
British vessels capturing American sailors provoked the War of eighteen twelve,
and the Lusitania being sunk by the Germans is Germans um.
That was that was what caused World War one in
large part. After that, the United States, I love that
(06:15):
we were the ones that said, you know what, three
miles isn't gonna cut it. We want two hundred miles.
And in ninety five we just kind of declared that. So, yeah,
the Great Sea Grab of forty five I like to
call it, basically what happened um for three hundred years
the law of the sea. It was in uh unofficial agreement,
an unofficial treat So the fact that it lasted three
(06:36):
years is pretty significant. But by one of the reasons
that lasted so long is because we didn't have the
capabilities to draw things like oh, I don't know, oil,
natural gas, huge commercial fishing operations were up yet. Um.
But by the mid twentieth century we started to develop
these capabilities, and so under pressure from oil company these UM,
(07:01):
Truman actually just said, you know what, UM, I'm going
to unilaterally extend the US's territorial waters two hundred miles
from three miles to two d miles. I got a
stat for you, I want to hear it. Speaking of oil, Uh,
nineteen fifty four, we were only pulling out less than
one million tons of oil per year from the ocean, right,
(07:22):
from all the oceans combined. Right, that's right. And by
the end of the nineteen sixties, which you know nine
that that much further along, almost four hundred million tons
per year. Right, So these things had had increased in value.
Our sophistication and removing them from the bottom of the
sea had increased, right, Um, And all of a sudden,
instead of just some ships passing, you know, loaded with
(07:44):
cigarettes for going from one country to another. That this
was the sea became a really much a much busier
place because by that ton Yeah, that's because there's a
lot of money to be had, agreed. I have another
stat I want to hear. Uh. In two thousand four,
which was a short time ago, the United States alone
UH generated sixty three billion dollars worth of wages paid
(08:07):
out for oceanic activities. So in just one year in
just the United States. Absolutely wow. So let's say, okay,
so it is it's big business, right, big time. And uh,
I imagine that's probably worth even more now with with
I can't imagine how much oil we're drawing out now
four years later, it's probably yeah, a lot more so. Um.
(08:28):
So clearly everybody kind of wants as much of these
resources as they can get. Which was the two hundred
mile sea grab that the US kicked off, A whole
lot of other countries followed suit immediately. It was just
a mess. Right, well they're doing it, I want yeah,
so um and a lot of these overlapped you know
what I mean, Like, think of Cuba, because not two
(08:49):
hundred miles from the US. So there's all there's just
a big mess, lots of ramification. And because it was
an informal treaty, the Law of the Sea, UM, nobody
could say anything really right. Even worse now that we're
drawing all these resources out the in over fishing, in
commercial fisheries, UM, nobody wants. Everybody wants the resources, but
(09:09):
nobody wants the responsibility of taking care of the oceans,
right and over fishing is a huge problem right now.
So right sure, And and one of the reasons why
is because of that there weren't any um any you know,
I guess treaties with teeth in place until yeah, the
(09:31):
the Maltese ambassador of the U n one Arvid Pardo,
finally stood up and said, wait, we must do something
about this is out of hand. Everybody's going nuts. I'm
looking at you United States, UM. And he suggested that
they have a convention, and what came out of that
was the Convention of the Law of the Sea right
and makes a lot of you know, I can't believe
(09:52):
it took a that long to officially do this. Yeah
that he he said it in sixty seven. In the
convention UH was finally ratified in eighty two and then
didn't come into force until ninety four, So it took
that long just to get this thing. Well that's the
that's the u n for you. They're not a fast
moving body, you know, is what they are kind of.
(10:12):
So at least they did this, thank you to Mr Pardo.
By the way. Yes, and one of one of the
it had several um provisions to it. One of the
things that did was it it um codified the law
of the sea, the territorial sea, well, the law of
the see the original treaty, the original agreement that number one,
the oceans really belonged to everybody. Um. It it um
(10:37):
set up an international maritime tribunal for complaints and you know,
um doling out revenge that kind of thing. Um. And uh,
it also is that well also we finally get to
that that mystery fact. You ready. It extended territorial waters
from three miles to twelve nautical miles, which is thirteen
(10:57):
point eight regular land miles, right, which are my favorite
kind of miles. Don't even ask me how many kilometers
that is because I'm an American. Um, So we don't
we don't play that way. No, we don't we're the
only people in the world who don't too. And I
remember when I remember when I was in elementary school
the metric system. You know, we had to study it
because we're gonna go to the metric system very very soon.
(11:18):
I think, Yeah, I remember that I was in the womb. Yeah,
what a joke, So nice chuck by American. UM. One
of the other things that it did was established exclusive
economic zones. Right, you want to talk about these, yeah,
eas s Basically, UM, if territory of waters extend our
(11:39):
states laws to rights of defense, eases basically are our
right to resources. Right, we're talking what we were just saying,
fisheries oilll that kind of thing. And how far do
they go? They go two hundred miles, so that's really substantial,
right and and uh so basically it said, okay, you
can have you can attack somebody if they come within
(12:00):
twelve nautical miles of your shore. You can't attack anybody
out there, but if there's somebody mining in your easy,
you can come to the International Tribune and we'll doll
out some revenge for you. Right. Um. So a lot
of people already had basically what amounted to an easy
and after the after the sea grab of n And
(12:23):
basically they were using the continental slope as the as
the boundary, right, because that's where there's a continental shelf
that goes from shore to the continental slope. And this
is a relatively shallow like six fifty feet or something,
which doesn't sound shallow to me. But once it hits
the slope, you're talking about it going miles down right.
(12:44):
That's frightening to me, right, And I also I want
to make a prediction here, Chuck. Once our technology to
remove natural resources advances enough that we can get it
out of the you know, areas in the continental slope,
there will be yet another sea grab. They'll push it
out even for there agreed at some point they may
just push it out so far that they all connect. Well,
(13:04):
you know that this is good? This is going on
right now, is it? There is another sea grab going
on around the Arctic circle thanks to our friend climate change,
which I think we used to call it global warming,
but they didn't pan out, right, Okay, So climate change
is actually starting to melt the polar ice caps, and
there's an estimated of what remains of the world's natural
(13:27):
gas and oil reserves locked under that ice. The ice
is starting to unlock, so all of a sudden, Canada,
the US, Russia, Norway, I think, Sweden, Denmark, Denmark, they're
all trying to claim um exclusive economic rights to those
and there's basically a race going on, and we're everyone's
using geology now they're they're kind of following the UN's convention.
(13:50):
But uh, the polar Bear, Yeah, no, I mean that's
not true. People do care, but they're disappearing because of
the you know, the ice caps melt. It's sad. Yeah,
they're not gonna have too many places to go very soon,
I imagine. No, And it affects there. I was just
writing about. This is why I brought it up. But
it affects their migrating patterns and their ability to hunt
(14:11):
because they hunt from you know, perched on the ice caps.
They get the seals. Oh yeah, no ice, no hunting.
The other thing to Josh we wanted to mention, or
I wanted to mention, was straights. I love straights. They're
my favorite body of water right, And it's tricky area
because straits are usually um more narrow than the twelve
mile territorial sea rule. So if you have straits that
(14:32):
go between you know, like a five mile straight going
between two countries. What do you do? Uh, you claim
it as international water. That's the only fair thing to do. Yeah,
And that was actually part of the custom and no sorry,
the original right, Yeah, that was that the Convention on
the Law of the Sea from the UN said, Yeah,
(14:52):
we're gonna stick with that through Yeah, pretty cool, agreed, Chuck.
So Chuck, you know you might be thinking at this point, Okay,
this is all well and good for coastal nations, what
about landlocked nations? What about Luxembourg? You know what, Luxembourg
has every right to the international waters as you and
I do. Yes, but how does that help them with oh,
(15:14):
I don't know, things like shipping their landlocked right. Shouldn't
they have some sort of access through their coastal neighbors
territorial waters, unfettered, unmolested. I think so. And I bet
you're about to tell me that they do. They do?
They do? Um, that's uh. I believe that's part of
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Um
(15:34):
that you have to gain you have to allow them
access through your territorial waters to the coast. Um if
your coastal nation, uh, and you can't tax them, you
can't levy tariffs. Basically, it's trying to make it fair. Right.
The problem is is if you are a landlocked country,
it sucks for you. There's all sorts of figures and
(15:56):
statistics that basically show that, especially developing countries they're called UM,
they're called l l d c's landlocked developing countries. They
can't get a leg up because that's there's so many
resources in the ocean that they can't get access to. Well,
it's not just that you remember you said that that
the U s has sixty three billion dollars made from
uh just just aquatic maritime activities. Yeah, right, okay, that's
(16:21):
just wages, right, not not not including economic stimulus of
any kind. UM. But it's not just that people in
landlock developing countries have a life expectancy of about three
and a half years less on average than their coastal
neighbors who are of the same developmental progress yep UM
they have, they make about three times less salary on average,
(16:43):
and UM their volume of trade is about sixty less
than their their coastal neighbors. UM. And one of the
examples I read about was UM the Central African Republic,
which is a landlocked Western African nation. It costs thirteen
thousand dollars to then a shipping container to that country,
you know, the standard ones that go from like train
(17:04):
to ship to whatever. To send it to the Ivory coast,
which is their coastal neighbor. Right there, cost three thousand dollars.
So as a result, landlocked Western African nations are making
about twelve percent of what their coastal neighbors are and
importing exporting revenues. Right. It's a shame, Josh, that these
landlocked countries can't partner up with the coastal nations and
(17:26):
you know, work out some kind of a trade deal,
like maybe they have better land for growing acrop inland.
And in the spirit of you know, global economy, you
should be president of the world, Chuck. I think that's
a fine idea. Um. I have another question, Josh. I
was looking at you know, they've got some underwater hotels
and now I'll be heard of these. Ah it rings
a bell, but I think that maybe from a Simpsons episode.
(17:49):
Now it's actually real. They have one in Dubai that's uh.
I believe it's opening very soon called hydropolis. You know,
Dubai does it all this crazy? I know they're They've
got really great imagining. And there's another one off the
coast of Fiji to set open next year called the
Poseidon Undersea Resort. And these are big, big money. We're
talking like fift hundred bucks a night for a room
(18:10):
and think about the insurance. Uh. These are off the coast,
so they're within the territorial area. But my question, and
I don't have an answer, but my question is, these
are private companies opening these things up, so technically they're
on the land below the sea that belongs to that country.
So I wonder if they had to work out a deal,
(18:30):
like whoever opened up hydropolists had to work out a
deal with the Dubai government. We want this little parcel
of land under the water to build something to create
a lot of revenue, and what kind of rent do
we need to pay? Yeah, they probably have a lease, Um,
like I guess an oil company would have for offshore drilling. Okay,
I guess it makes sense. You know, it's probably very
long and expensive. Interesting stuff. Yeah, Okay, one last thing
(18:54):
I don't I think we would be remiss in getting
out of this podcast. If we didn't name the five oceans,
can you name a Chuck, it's not in the article. Well, Josh,
technically it's all one big ocean because it's all connected. Yes, nice,
try Chuck, you want to try naming the five os
I probably can't do. This is embarrassing. I let's say, Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic.
(19:14):
How many other five? And there's one more you've got?
You got one more to go Arctic in um. Oh,
like it's southern. Yes, it is the Southern Ocean. That's
what's called. Yeah, who knew? Yeah, I had no idea.
I thought there were only four. Oh wow, there's three
continents though, right, well, well we all just soak in
chuck shame. Um, we're going to uh it's a deep pool,
(19:38):
my friends. I think we should go to listen to.
Mail gets you out of this one next. So it's
a great time for listening. So, Josh, this week, we
have a couple of things. We have one I'm just
gonna call correction coup. This is a correction with the
high coup, which is oh nice that we love these.
And then we have an exceptional listener, Mail Lee Santel
or Santelli I'm not sure rot us in with the
(20:00):
correction coup about just the one re released the other
day about Niagara Falls, and you likend a rebreather or
to scuba equipment. You probably knew you were wrong as
soon as it came out of your mouth. No, I thought,
that's the piece that goes in your mouth, No, Josh. Apparently,
a scuba buoyancy control device or b c D exhales
the same carbon dioxy dioxide that the user exhales, which
(20:23):
bubbles to the surface. A rebreather recycles a portion that
the user exhales, and the usable ox reusable oxygen is
rebreathe So basically, um, with a rebreather, you have no bubbles,
which is why the Navy seals exactly. And I think
that's what I was referencing, was Navy seal scuba equipment,
(20:43):
not you know, Joe schmob scuba. Of course in that case,
you were right. And Lee, thanks for nothing, No, just kidding.
Here's a high coup though that Lee put it verycist,
simply swimming under blue passing fishes on the left, don't
forget the air very important. Nice And we have one
more which I fell exceptional fan mail from our friend.
(21:04):
Chrissie is what she calls herself, Christina Cannon and Michigan
and she's a student and her family. They sit around,
let's to our podcast, which is it is so Cool Hello?
And she wrote a little poem and oda how stuff Works.
It goes a little something like this. I used to
listen to cold Play on my daily walks to class,
but those days were finished since the How Stuff Works
(21:27):
podcasts shows are random and funny and make me laugh
out loud a lot. For It's not every day I
learned what is the best place to be shot on?
Behalf of us college students? Thanks for telling us stuff
we should know. I hope you guys have a great
weekend and keep up the wonderful show. So in your face, Coldplay,
I know. So thank you to Chrissie and uh the
(21:47):
other one Lee. All right, thanks to both of you
and everybody who writes in to let us know that
we warm the cockles of your heart because you wore ours.
And if you want to know more about who owns
the ocean, you can type in whom is the ocean
appropriately enough in the handy search bar of our beloved website. Also,
I would recommend going to open democracy dot com and
(22:08):
looking for an article called aiming for the Sea that
argues points about landlocked developing countries. And I took a
couple of stats from now Ashamed to admit right, and Uh.
We would also like to plug our blog, which is
do it Chuck should be now live on the website.
It's the stuff you Should Know blog. And we want
to invite our fans to interact with each other and
talk about things that we talk about. And you know,
(22:30):
it's a smart group of people out there, you guys. Yeah,
And you can actually access that through the house stuff
Works homepage. There's a there's a little portal through there
take you through time and space to me and Chuck
and Uh, if you want to send us an email, Wow,
this is a lot of information. If you want to
send us an email, you can send it to stuff
podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
(22:53):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
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