Declaration made upon accession:
"In exercise of the right conferred by Article 310 of the Convention, the Republic of Kiribati, upon accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), declares that in accepting the provisions of Part IV of Article 47 of the said Convention, wishes to highlight its concerns relating to the formula used for drawing archipelagic baselines.
Part IV calculations for archipelagic waters do not allow a baseline to be drawn around all the islands of each of the three Groups of islands that make up the Republic of Kiribati. These Group of islands are spread over an expanse of over three million square kilometres of ocean, and the existing formula as spelt out in Part IV of the Convention, will divide Kiribati's three island groups into three distinct exclusive zone waters and international waters.
The Government of Kiribati wishes to propose that the formula used for drawing archipelagic baselines be revisited in the future to take into consideration the above-mentioned concerns of Kiribati.
Accession by Kiribati to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea does not in any way prejudice its status as an archipelagic state or its legal rights to declare all or part of its maritime territory as archipelagic waters under the said Convention."