![\"fishers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/769291_Bienpesca-Pescadores_impreso-1.jpg\")
People may consider the Gulf of California to be as Mexican as mariachis and nopales, but legally, that mostly applies to the northern third of the Gulf, the \u201cAlto Golfo,\u201d where Indigenous fishermen have traditionally made a living. (Cuartoscuro)<\/p>\n
In an essay titled \u201cGeostrategic Importance of the Gulf of California: A Vision Towards the Historic Bay,\u201d Naval Captain Carlos Alejandro Sans Aguilar suggests petitioning the International Maritime Organization<\/a> to reclassify that area as a \u201chistoric bay,\u201d a designation that would allow Mexico to treat it like land territory and enforce its own laws.<\/p>\n A \u201chistoric bay\u201d is a body of water that a coastal nation claims as its internal waters, despite not meeting standard geographical criteria. The claim is based on the nation having traditionally and openly exercised continuous, long-term control with the implicit or explicit acquiescence of other nations.<\/p>\n The entire Gulf \u2014 an area of \u200b\u200bapproximately 50,000 square nautical miles \u2014 is considered a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean and Mexico\u2019s national waters only extend 12 nautical miles from its coastlines on either side of the 700-mile-long body of water.<\/p>\n The upper part of the Gulf \u2014 el Alto Golfo de California \u2014 is the only section designated as internal waters, meaning Mexico formally has control of only the northern third of the Gulf.<\/p>\n According to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the central and southern thirds are international waters.\u00a0<\/p>\n The rationale for the author\u2019s request is to rid the Gulf of foreign powers as well as organized crime gangs that use the waters for illegal activities, such as piracy, poaching, human trafficking and drug trafficking.<\/p>\n The essay argues that the current condition \u201cundermines Mexico\u2019s sovereignty and national security due to the implicit freedom of navigation and overflight.\u201d The legal status of the southern two-thirds of that part of the sea \u201callows various socioeconomic activities to be carried out, without the Mexican State being able to do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n One recent incident cited by advocates for this change is a U.S. spy flight that took place on Feb. 2.<\/p>\n A U.S. Air Force plane entered the Gulf from the Pacific Ocean and flew north about 370 miles before turning around and flying south along the same track.<\/p>\n Pentagon\u2019s 18 spy plane missions near US-Mexico border spark surveillance concerns<\/a><\/p>\n In March, Deputy Gustavo de Hoyos presented legislation to reform Mexico\u2019s Federal Law of the Sea and to petition for the reclassification of the Gulf as \u201ca historic bay or inland sea,\u201d while saying \u201cthe lack of absolute control represents a strategic vulnerability for Mexico\u2019s foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMexico meets the standards of international law to justify this reclassification, as it has exercised effective sovereignty over the region for centuries, without objection from the international community,\u201d the bill states, \u201cand consolidating sovereignty over the Gulf will strengthen national security, the protection of maritime resources, and geopolitical stability in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n With reports from El Sol de M\u00e9xico<\/a> and Infobae<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The map might lend the impression that the Gulf of California is Mexican territory, but that\u2019s not the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[41382,7,9,8,28510,52627,52628],"class_list":["post-95845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-baja-california-peninsula","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-gulf-of-california","tag-gulf-of-california-mexican-territory","tag-mexican-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}