UNCLOS Article 88

UNCLOS Article 88 reserves the high seas for peaceful purposes. It is the maritime counterpart of the UN Charter prohibition on the threat or use of force and one of the freedoms-of-the-high-seas guarantees in Part VII of the Convention. The provision is brief and declaratory; states read it as barring acts of aggression on the high seas while not prohibiting all military activity, since navies routinely transit, exercise, and conduct lawful operations there. It is cited together with Article 301 (peaceful uses of the sea) and Article 58, which extends the same reservation to the exclusive economic zone.