Change in the Law of the Sea: Context, Mechanisms and Practice

"Unwavering as a lighthouse on a battered shore, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has served as a legal landmark for almost forty years now. Designed to 'settle all issues relating to the law of the sea', it sets out the framework 'within which all activities on the oceans must be carried out'. Both its substantive and spatial scope are vast; covering over 70 percent of the Earth's surface, the oceans contain 80 percent of life on Earth while sustaining the other 20 percent, and facilitate the carriage of 90 percent of the world's trade".
The oceans provide a vivid illustration of the relationship between an ever-changing context and a formalistic legal framework. The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, hailed as one of the greatest achievements of international law-making, is confronted with dramatically different present-day exigencies. Change in the Law of the Sea provides an analysis and synthesis of the mechanisms that allow this ‘old’ treaty to respond to its contemporary context, shining new light not only on how change occurs in international law, but also on how the sources of demand for change are themselves changing.See Less