Who owns the Oceans and their mineral deposits?

Have you ever asked yourself who owns the oceans? Well I was interested in this and also actually my science teacher asked me to write about it, so here it is.

There are five oceans on this Earth and they are all intertwined into one big ocean that covers 71% of the world. This wide ocean does not belong to any single country. There is this thing called the Law of the Sea which was established in 1982.  The Law of the Sea established international laws to regulate the oceans. These laws took effect on November 16, 1994. The law establishes territorial water boundaries. Every nation has a right to 12 nautical miles (22.2km) of sea beyond its coast. Everything else is stated as International Waters and anyone can go into them or use them for shipping, fishing, etc. This Law is different only when straights are concerned. These water passages here are so narrow (mostly less then 22.2km)  that it is usually divided evenly between the two nations concerned so that they would share in profits equally. 

The economic use of waters is defined by the EEZ's (Exclusive Economic Zones) which extend the shore lines by further 200 miles. However there is a catch. The nations that defined their coastal waters by continental shelf (due to shallow sea area) in the post WWII sea grab have extended their EEZ to 350 miles. So why is this a problem? In the Arctic Ocean, a new sea grab like the one ignited by the United States in 1945 is in full swing among the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Denmark, Norway and Russia. These nations have estimated some 25% of yet untouched resources of oil and natural gas in this area alone. This was brought about by the melting ice of Artic which has made it easier to mine these resources including mineral deposits. But that melting ice will have another impact. Rising sea levels will push shores inland and pull the sovereign boundaries of these nations farther out of the Arctic and away from its resources. This means that some time soon new Laws will have to be established as it is clear that nations are not playing fair in this matter.

I don't believe that it is fair that reach nations are mining most of the oceans for minerals as they are richer and have more technology. We have seen what they have done with the sea grab and additional extensions of the EEZs. I believe that new Laws have to be established that will clearly define how much mining one single nation can do or if reach developed nations insist on mining then a system of profit and technology sharing must be made so that all nations, developed and developing, can profit from it. I also think that mining should be limited so as not to deplete Earth's resources.

Anyway I hope that you have learned something new from this post and that you have enjoyed it. See you all at school.