[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 35 (Monday, September 6, 1999)]
[Pages 1684-1685]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 7219--Contiguous Zone of the United States

September 2, 1999

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    International law recognizes that coastal nations may establish 
zones contiguous to their territorial seas, known as contiguous zones.
    The contiguous zone of the United States is a zone contiguous to the 
territorial sea of the United States, in which the United States may 
exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, 
fiscal, immigration, or sanitary laws and regulations within its 
territory or territorial sea, and to punish infringement of the above 
laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea.
    Extension of the contiguous zone of the United States to the limits 
permitted by international law will advance the law enforcement and 
public health interests of the United States. Moreover, this extension 
is an important step in preventing the removal of cultural heritage 
found within 24 nautical miles of the baseline.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, by the authority vested in me 
as President by the Constitution of the United States, and in accordance 
with international law, do hereby proclaim the extension of the 
contiguous zone of the United States of America, including the 
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the United States 
Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and 
any other territory or possession over which the United States exercises 
sovereignty, as follows:
    The contiguous zone of the United States extends to 24 nautical 
miles from the baselines of the United States determined in accordance 
with international law, but in no case within the territorial sea of 
another nation.
    In accordance with international law, reflected in the applicable 
provisions of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, within the 
contiguous zone of the United States the ships and aircraft of all 
countries enjoy the high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight and 
the laying of submarine cables and pipelines, and other internationally 
lawful uses of the sea related to those freedoms, such as those 
associated with the operation of ships, aircraft, and submarine cables 
and pipelines, and compatible with the other provisions of international 
law reflected in the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea.
    Nothing in this proclamation:
(a)         amends existing Federal or State law;
(b)         amends or otherwise alters the rights and duties of the 
            United States or

[[Page 1685]]

            other nations in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the United 
            States established by Proclamation 5030 of March 10, 1983; 
            or
(c)         impairs the determination, in accordance with international 
            law, of any maritime boundary of the United States with a 
            foreign jurisdiction.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of 
September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and 
of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
twenty-fourth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., September 7, 
1999]

Note: This proclamation will be published in the Federal Register on 
September 8.