The Competence of the Coastal State to Exercise Control at Sea under the International Human Rights Law

Under the international law as a whole, the coastal state has certain competence to exercise power on the seas beyond its borders. While exercising governmental power on the seas to protect its border, to prevent irregular immigration and expel aliens to their origin countries on the one hand, coastal state has to comply with the international human rights law in order to protect the life and the rights of those travelling the seas, to fulfil the humanitarian obligation to assist and rescue persons in distress at sea, on the other. The competence of the coastal state to exercise power on the seas is intertwined with the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the state. In this article, for it is important to Turkey as a peninsula, the exercise of jurisdiction on the seas has been examined in terms of the European human rights law, in particular.