TokelauTokelau (ˈtoʊkəlaʊ; north-northeast; known previously as the Union Islands, and, until 1976, known officially as the Tokelau Islands) is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It consists of three tropical coral atolls: Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo. They have a combined land area of . The capital rotates yearly among the three atolls. In addition to these three, Swains Island, which forms part of the same archipelago, is the subject of an ongoing territorial dispute; it is currently administered by the United States as part of American Samoa.
Howland IslandHowland Island (ˈhaʊlənd) is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States. Together with Baker Island it forms part of the Phoenix Islands. For statistical purposes, Howland is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The island has an elongated cucumber-shape on a north–south axis, , and covers .
Jan MayenJan Mayen (jɑn ˈmɑ̀ɪən) is a Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: larger northeast Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, linked by a wide isthmus. It lies northeast of Iceland (495 km [305 mi] NE of Kolbeinsey), east of central Greenland, and northwest of Vesterålen, Norway. The island is mountainous, the highest summit being the Beerenberg volcano in the north.
ZealandiaZealandia (pronounced ziːˈlændiə), also known as Te Riu-a-Māui (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust in Oceania that subsided after breaking away from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago. It has been described variously as a submerged continent, continental fragment, and microcontinent. The name and concept for Zealandia was proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995, and satellite imagery shows it to be almost the size of Australia.
OkinotorishimaOkinotorishima, or Parece Vela, is a coral reef with two rocks enlarged with tetrapod-cement structures. It is administered by Japan with a total shoal area of and land area . Its dry land area is mostly made up by three concrete encasings and there is a stilt platform in the lagoon housing a research station. There is a third completely artificial tetrapod-cement islet. is located on the Palau–Kyushu Ridge in the Philippine Sea, southeast of Okidaitōjima and west-southwest of South Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands or south of Tokyo, Japan.
Law of the seaLaw of the sea is a body of international law governing the rights and duties of states in maritime environments. It concerns matters such as navigational rights, sea mineral claims, and coastal waters jurisdiction. While drawn from a number of international customs, treaties, and agreements, modern law of the sea derives largely from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), effective since 1994, which is generally accepted as a codification of customary international law of the sea, and is sometimes regarded as the "constitution of the oceans".
Condominium (international law)A condominium (plural either condominia, as in Latin, or condominiums) in international law is a political territory (state or border area) in or over which multiple sovereign powers formally agree to share equal dominium (in the sense of sovereignty) and exercise their rights jointly, without dividing it into "national" zones. Although a condominium has always been recognized as a theoretical possibility, condominia have been rare in practice.
Ascension IslandAscension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is about from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around to the southeast. The territory also includes the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago, to the south, about halfway to the Antarctic Circle.
Terra nulliusTerra nullius (ˈtɛrə_nʌˈlaɪəs, plural terrae nullius) is a Latin expression meaning "nobody's land". It was a principle sometimes used in international law to justify claims that territory may be acquired by a state's occupation of it. There are currently three territories sometimes claimed to be terra nullius: Bir Tawil (a strip of land between Egypt and Sudan), 4 pockets of land near the Danube due to the Croatia–Serbia border dispute, and parts of Antarctica, principally Marie Byrd Land.
