This Chapter confirms, with certain exceptions, law established during the Japanese administration which declared all marine areas below the ordinary high watermark to belong to the government. Certain customary rights to place and maintain fish weirs or traps are re-established. Other exceptions concern customary rights of owners of land abutting the ocean to collect coconuts and other materials and fishing rights on, and in waters over reefs where the general depth of water does not exceed four feet at mean low water. The Chapter also provides for the safeguarding of other rights in the coastal zone and prohibits the misuse in the exercise of rights re-established under this Chapter.
Authors and Publishers
Hupperts, Rudolph (CONSLEGB)
Multiple waves of colonizers, each speaking a distinct language, migrated to the New Hebrides in the millennia preceding European exploration in the 18th century. This settlement pattern accounts for the complex linguistic diversity found on the archipelago to this day. The British and French, who settled the New Hebrides in the 19th century, agreed in 1906 to an Anglo-French Condominium, which administered the islands until independence in 1980, when the new name of Vanuatu was adopted.
Vanuatu is a parliamentary republic.
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