The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea contains only general rules concerning the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf. However, international courts and tribunals have, within their compass, elaborated the law of maritime delimitation through their jurisprudence, thereby maintaining the resilience of the Convention in a particular context of maritime delimitations. The jurisprudence is not a panacea, however. As regards the implications of maritime delimitation judgments for third States in the same region, for example, the jurisprudence has not been consistent. Lack of consistency of the jurisprudence may undermine the predictability of the law of maritime delimitation and weaken the resilience of the Convention. This article critically assesses the approach of the International Court of Justice to the presence of third States in the process of maritime delimitation, by analysing the Nicaragua v. Colombia case and the Costa Rica v. Nicaragua case, respectively.
This chapter examines the role of industry self-regulation in relation to international maritime law. While multilateral intergovernmental agreements are important to encouraging regulatory harmonisation, private actors have an essential role in industry, both in developing norms and in making rules and standards effective to ensure safe and secure shipping on clean oceans. Nonetheless, private actors are often overlooked and yet to be placed in the context of international maritime law and especially the United Nations Convention of Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This chapter does so by analysing industry self-regulation in relation to UNCLOS, flag states and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) respectively.
As ocean space increasingly is used for production purposes, such as for the production of food and feed, renewable energy and resource mining, competition for space becomes a concern. A spatial solution to this is to co-locate activities in a multi-use setting. Next to the direct (financial) costs and benefits of multi-use and the societal cost and benefits, there are other factors, in the realm of legal aspects, insurance, health and safety issues and the overall governance of multi-use, that determine whether multi-use can be implemented successfully. This includes transaction costs that arise when for example non-adequate regulation, governance and insurance schemes are in place. Based on the analysis of five case studies across Europe these combined/collective transaction costs of multi-use are analysed and suggestions how to reduce and/or overcome these transaction costs are presented.
The BBNJ Agreement will affect legal frameworks for the conservation of marine biological diversity in various regions of the world ocean and the marine Arctic is no exception. As biological diversity in the marine Arctic is particularly vulnerable, the implications of the BBNJ Agreement for the conservation of biological diversity in the marine Arctic deserves serious consideration. Of particular note is the procedure for an environmental impact assessment (EIA). Given that damage to the environment may be irreversible, it is a prerequisite to conduct an EIA before authorizing planned activities, with a view to preventing environmental harm. An EIA constitutes a crucial element in the conservation of the marine environment, including biological diversity. Hence, this article examines the potential implications of the procedure for an EIA as set out under the BBNJ Agreement for the conservation of biological diversity in the marine Arctic beyond national jurisdiction.
This study examines how the work of the International Law Commission (ILC) has contributed to the ‘progressive development’ of general international law relevant to regulating rescue and disembarkation of refugees and migrants found at sea. It explores the ILC’s texts on interpretation and implementation of international obligations, state responsibility, fragmentation and harmonization of international law, and the status of certain principles of general international law, including jus cogens general principles of law and the principle of good faith, which present legal parameters for regulation of maritime search and rescue operations. In conducting doctrinal examinations of international law and gathering evidence of the practice of States and other relevant actors, the ILC contributes by analysing, clarifying, and systemising important topics of general international law. However, state implementation frequently falls short of the legal interpretations of the ILC, particularly as they relate to respect for and protection of human rights at sea. Therefore, while the ILC needs new strategies to directly connect with States and international organisations, it remains reliant on the mutual following of national and international courts and tribunals, and its mutual contribution in scholarship.
Illicit maritime activities generate significant scholarly and policy attention. While diverse in nature, governance responses share many regulatory features. This introduction advances the notion of maritime justice, a socio‐legal research agenda. Different from broader maritime security studies, it places law at the centre of the inquiry, studying maritime governance practices through the lens of regulation. Empirically, it covers operational, spatial, and structural junctions between illicit maritime activity and regulatory responses deriving from international and domestic law. Analytically, it is heterogeneous but holds a methodological commitment to studying everyday law enforcement practices of maritime security governance to disentangle its meanings and effects. The introduction posits the junction between illicit maritime activities and regulatory responses as a productive space to study the varied norms that shape order‐making at sea, and vice versa.
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At The Climate Show, we talk to leading experts on climate change law and politics. Through a series of conversations, we explore current developments in climate change research.
Podcast hosts: Beatriz Martinez Romera, Linnéa Nordlander and Alessandro Monti.
Discusses the challenges of raising finance to build and convert low- and zero-emission ships as required by international law and policy to mitigate climate change.
In a new book, senior researcher Jessica Larsen analyses how relevant anti-piracy legislation was enforced when international ship contributions and regional coastal states cooperated on anti-piracy off the coast of Somalia in 2008-2016.
The book is a socio-legal study based on both clause analyses and ethnographic fieldwork. The book takes the reader on board a warship patrolling the Indian Ocean and into the courtrooms of the island nation of Seychelles, which conducted 17 piracy cases. Through interviews and observations, the book uncovers how anti-piracy legislation works in practice. Existing studies have primarily examined existing law. This book goes out into the field to also uncover applied law.
The analysis shows examples of ambiguity about which legal sources should be applied at sea. It identifies practices in court that show cases of impunity and questions legal certainty. The implications of this should be considered as counter-piracy off Somalia has been used as a model for counter-piracy elsewhere, such as in the Gulf of Guinea.
The implementation of unmanned vessels will evidently come with its own legal challenges. One of the most crucial of these is the identification of the role and status of the shore-based controller (SBC) for the purposes of determining liability. Different liability regimes apply different legal principles in this regard. This article will explore these issues from the perspective of English law and Scandinavian law.