International waters

International waters are those regions of the ocean where no nation can claim any kind of jurisdiction.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea recognizes that maritime nations need to control an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off their coasts. Maritime nations can struggle to get other nations to recognize the size of the Exclusive Economic Zones they wish to claim. Portugal recently claimed a vast region of the Atlantic Ocean, based on their control of the Azores.

Areas where there is no general acceptance that they lie under a single nations' jurisdiction are considered international waters, and these waters are vulnerable to overfishing and the dumping of pollutants.