海洋法專區 01 • 主權 • 主權權利 • 管轄權
Law of the Sea 01 • Sovereignty • Sovereign Rights • Jurisdiction
《海洋基本法》所稱「海洋權益」並非單一權利，而是由主權、主權權利、管轄權三個強度遞減的層次組成，從內水、領海一路延伸到鄰接區、專屬經濟海域與公海。這三層分別對應國家安全、海域治安、海事安全三種治理任務。海底電纜作為國家關鍵基礎設施，其保護就鑲嵌在這個權益結構裡——也因此，一條電纜在哪個海域被切斷，決定了國家能動用哪一層的權力去因應。
"Maritime rights" under Taiwan's Ocean Basic Act are not a single right but a three-tier structure of decreasing strength — sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction — running from internal waters and the territorial sea out to the contiguous zone, EEZ, and high seas. The three tiers map onto three governance missions: national security, maritime law-and-order, and maritime safety. Submarine cables, as critical national infrastructure, sit inside this structure — so where a cable is cut determines which tier of power the state can bring to bear.
《海洋基本法》第 1 條揭示國家應「維護海洋權益、確保國家安全」。但「海洋權益」四個字常被當成抽象口號，其實它在國際法上有相當精確的結構。簡單說，它是國家在不同海域、依國際法（特別是 1982 年《聯合國海洋法公約》UNCLOS）能主張的權利總和——而這些權利的「強度」並不一致。
理解海底電纜的保護與執法，必須先理解：國家對海洋的權力，是分層、遞減的。越靠近陸地，權力越完整；越往外海，權力越受限，最後在公海上幾乎只剩對「自己船籍」的管轄。
Article 1 of Taiwan's Ocean Basic Act declares that the state shall "safeguard maritime rights and ensure national security." The phrase is often treated as an abstract slogan, but it has a fairly precise structure in international law. In short, it is the sum of the rights a state may assert in different maritime zones under international law — above all the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) — and those rights are not of uniform strength.
To understand cable protection and enforcement you must first grasp this: a state's power over the sea is layered and decreasing. The closer to land, the more complete the power; the farther offshore, the more constrained, until on the high seas almost nothing remains but jurisdiction over one's own flagged ships.
海洋權益由強到弱，可分為三個層次。它們不是並列，而是像一道從岸邊往外海逐漸黯淡的光譜。
Maritime rights, from strongest to weakest, fall into three tiers. They are not parallel categories but a spectrum that dims from the shoreline outward.
海洋權益的三個層次，可以對應到三種不同性質的海洋治理任務。這個對照有助於釐清「斷纜」到底是誰的事、用哪一套工具處理。
同一起斷纜事故，可能同時橫跨三個層次：表面上是海事意外，實質上是海域治安犯罪，背後可能還是國家安全威脅。正因如此，單靠任何一套法律工具都不夠——這也是本站把「行為訊號」公開、供跨領域研判的原因。
The three tiers of maritime rights map onto three different kinds of ocean-governance mission. This mapping helps clarify whose problem a cable cut really is, and which toolkit applies.
A single cable cut can span all three tiers at once: ostensibly a maritime accident, substantively a law-and-order crime, and potentially a national-security threat underneath. That is why no single legal tool suffices — and why this site publishes behavioral signals for cross-disciplinary assessment.
把海底電纜放進「海洋權益」討論，理由很現實：它不是普通的海床設施，而是國家關鍵基礎設施（critical infrastructure）。
這代表：切斷海底電纜，攻擊的不是「上網速度」，而是整個社會與國家的神經系統。對一個高度依賴對外連線、又位處地緣前線的島嶼而言，海纜安全與國家安全幾乎是同義詞。也因此，《海洋基本法》揭示的「維護海洋權益」，在台灣的語境裡，必然包含「守住這幾條看不見的纜線」。
下一篇〈海底電纜的國際法保護〉將說明：國際法究竟為這些纜線提供了什麼保護，又留下哪些致命的漏洞。
There is a very practical reason to put submarine cables inside the "maritime rights" discussion: they are not ordinary seabed fixtures but critical national infrastructure.
This means cutting a submarine cable does not attack "internet speed" — it attacks the nervous system of an entire society and state. For an island that is heavily dependent on external connectivity and sits on a geopolitical front line, cable security and national security are almost synonyms. So the Ocean Basic Act's pledge to "safeguard maritime rights" must, in Taiwan's context, include holding these invisible cables.
The next article, Submarine Cables Under International Law, explains what protection international law actually offers these cables — and the fatal gaps it leaves behind.
本頁概念可對照以下公開、權威來源核實：
本文三層權益架構與野柳斷纜案例，參酌李謁霏〈《海洋基本法》的法律構造·第十二講：海洋權益——以中華電信電纜野柳斷纜事故為案例〉，《當代法律》2025 年 3 月號。
本頁為研究與教育用途；偵測訊號為待查線索，非法律或事實認定。詳見 方法論。
The concepts on this page can be verified against these public, authoritative sources:
The three-tier framework and Yehliu cable-cut case study draw on Li Yefei, "The Legal Structure of the Ocean Basic Act, Lecture 12: Maritime Rights — The Chunghwa Telecom Yehliu Cable-Cut Incident," Contemporary Law Journal, March 2025.
This page is for research and education; detection signals are leads to investigate, not legal or factual findings. See the methodology.