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ABSTRACT
Islands are objects of interests in contemporary and historical geography. By mid-2015, they are the subject of discussion in legal, political and security narratives. Artificial and natural islands appear interesting because of their shape and design: the latter by nature; the former by imagination and initiative, if funding and resources are available, as witnessed in the recent phenomenon of iconic artificial islands. The rate at which they are being created and established is alarming, particularly in the South China Sea. The location and the size of an artificial island can be chosen which makes it much more interesting and challenging. The use and status of Artificial Installations and Structures (A.I.S.) is a concept that has been dealt with only barely by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. On the other hand, environmental and safety issues have been much more thoroughly elaborated at national and regional levels, but only as platforms for exploration and exploitation. The use of A.I.S., as a means of conserving territorial sovereignty over vanishing areas, is an interesting development, which is yet to be taken under consideration by the scientific community, legal fraternity and policy makers. Artificial islands as human habitats, military outposts, land reclamation projects, sovereignty indicators for submersing islands and islets, are some of the most noteworthy concepts. The lack of an integrated and coherent framework on their legal status acts as a hindrance for their adoption as an effective means against the problems that sea level rise poses on territorial sovereignty. In this article the focus is on refashioning geography for the purposes of terrestrial gain and territorial creep in the marine domain and creation of military bases.
Keywords: Land reclamation, artificial islands, urbanisation of the sea, Article 121 of UNCLOS, micro-nations, maritime jurisdictional creep.
INTRODUCTION
Exclusive of a major turn in the course of human events developing and developed coastal and island States are advancing (perhaps creeping) seaward and establishing ocean-based urban and/or industrial complexes of varying size as discussed later in this article. The growing awareness of the state of depletion of land-based resources, of pollution on land and in the rivers and seas, for example, in China; of over-population in some island States, as in the instance of Hong...