It is a pleasure to announce the publication on 20th May 2020 of ‘The Global Law of the Sea: Baselines and Boundary Delimitation’.  The Law of the Sea is a fascinating subject for scholars of the law, and, if I were a Master of Laws’ student today, I would wish for this subject (or aspects of it) to be offered by the relevant Faculty of Laws and would seriously consider undertaking it.

The tripartite nature of compulsory dispute resolution under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – or quadripartite if Annex VIII special arbitrations are included – contributes to this being a very dynamic topic.  What would make States Parties to the UNCLOS decide to exclude, or to select preferentially, dispute resolution according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – which represents tradition, scholarship and authority?  Why might they prefer – or dislike – the flexibility offered by pursuing settlement of their disputes by means of an arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with Annex VII to the UNCLOS?  Would the attraction of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) – with its specialist judges and chambers thereof – be strong in the eyes of these States Parties?  Chapter 2 of the monograph considers these three procedures, with the aid of a sample case for each of them.  Later in the chapter, the preclusive options of States Parties for those methods of compulsory dispute resolution are tabulated and discussed.  States Parties have exercised the optional exclusion relating to the delimitation of maritime boundaries more than they have used the other two optional exclusions.  Does this mean that they tend not to trust the ICJ, the ITLOS and/or an Annex VII arbitral tribunal to settle their thalassic boundary disputes?  The South China Sea Arbitration is a case which illustrates that regional sensitivities run high concerning the sovereignty of, and the rights conveyed by, the high-tide features of the South China Sea – and the Annex VII arbitral tribunal constituted to adjudicate the case is determined to minimize the controversy and ensure that the terms of the UNCLOS are adhered to.  Contrary to some of the reports at the time of the arbitral award, it is submitted that the tribunal has been successful in this regard.  But this is only the start – the UNCLOS is too new to have been thoroughly tested and refined as a stable component of long-run international law, even though it is an excellent, comprehensive document.  As the ITLOS gathers momentum, one expects a greater volume of maritime cases to be submitted to it – as the conclusion to Chapter 3 opines.  Chapter 3 mirrors Chapter 2 in that it selects one case that the ICJ resolves, one that an arbitral tribunal (prior to the operationalization of the UNCLOS – including its Annex VII) adjudges, and one that the ITLOS considers – all three of these legal actions concerning baselines and boundary delimitation.  The first of these is Fisheries Case (United Kingdom v. Norway), in which the ICJ made a seminal judgment in relation to baselines and historic title.  I first encountered this case when teaching an International Business Law module to Master of Laws students – a module that I had revamped from scratch and written all ten Lectures and all ten Seminars – with the help on the topic of alternative dispute resolution in the first year from my amiable colleague Mr. Damian Smith.  Fortunately, my earlier Master of Laws’ degree was over the same area (i.e., International Business Law), so I had stacks of information and notes on international commercial arbitration upon which to draw!  Fisheries Case (United Kingdom v. Norway) demonstrates the capacity that judges at the ICJ are able to show to go beyond the literal interpretation of rules and customs in order to attain a fair result.  Whilst this might be seen as straying onto the ground that legal theorists call ‘pragmatism’, it is arguable that this is preferable to pursuing the adjudicatory due process to the most miniscule detail if the latter would be likely to lead to an unjust outcome.  This debate was lively when I studied jurisprudence as an External Law Student of the University of London many years ago, and, it is opined, of current relevance to international cases – where the law is only settled in part.  The UNCLOS makes a substantial contribution to settling the law, and relevant parts of it are described in Chapter 1 and compared with its predecessor conventions adopted in Geneva in 1958.  Taken together, the book ‘works’ – at least from the author’s perspective.  I hope, and trust, that, from a reader’s perspective, a similar conclusion is drawn.

Graeme Baber,

February 2020.

Further information concerning ‘The Global Law of the Sea: Baselines and Boundary Delimitation’ is available from its author’s KUDOS webpage – https://www.growkudos.com/profile/graeme_baber_1.