[Remy Jorritsma (LL.M.) is a lecturer in public international law at the Department of International and European Law of Maastricht University. In September 2015 he will join the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg as a Research Fellow/PhD candidate. Contact at r.jorritsma@maastrichtuniversity.nl.] Armed conflicts involving e.g. Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Palestine, and the self-proclaimed Islamic State demonstrate legal ambiguities with regard to State responsibility as a...
“The importance of stable and definitive maritime boundaries is all the more essential when the exploration and exploitation of the resources of the continental shelf are at stake… the sovereign rights of coastal States, and therefore the maritime boundaries between them, must be determined with precision to allow for development and investment (emphasis added).”Even though the East Med states maintain variant positions on maritime affairs, they have perceived the utility of the law of the sea apparatus in facilitating hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, hence they decided to act within its ambit and collaborate with a view to gaining multiple profits from the energy windfall. Legal analysis of the agreements In the Preambles of these instruments, the contracting parties set forth the desire for cooperation, note the importance of EEZ delimitation “for the purpose of development” and recall the relevant LOSC provisions. The invocation of the LOSC in the Israeli-Cypriot agreement is of utmost significance as it not only illustrates the universal application of the Convention, but, most importantly, highlights the willingness of Israel to act in conformity with the LOSC, despite not being a party to the Convention, at least in terms of the provisions relevant to the EEZ. In any event, the EEZ concept forms part and parcel of customary international law, thus, even non-member states to the Convention are entitled to use and are obliged to observe the relevant rules [Continental Shelf (Tunisia/Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (Judgment) [1982] ICJ Rep. 18, para. 100; Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Gulf of Maine Area [1984] ICJ Rep. 246, para. 94; Continental Shelf (Libyan Arab Jamahiriyia/Malta) (Judgment) [1985] ICJ Rep. 13, para. 34]. Perforce Article 1(a) of each agreement, the maritime limit between the contracting states is the median line, namely a line “every point of which is equidistant from the nearest points on the baselines of the two Parties” (Article 15 LOSC). The mutual acceptance and use of the median line evinces the establishment of a regional practice in the East Med favouring this method, contrary to the efforts of Turkey, which has diachronically been rejecting the median line/equidistance principle; instead, Turkey has been advocating the vague equitable principles/relevant circumstances method, which provides that all relevant factors should be considered so as to reach an equitable result. Paragraphs b-d of Article 1 address the definition of the coordinates of the maritime boundaries. Furthermore,
[Vito Todeschini (LL.M.(Ferrara University); E.MA (EIUC, Venice)) is a PhD Fellow at Aarhus University, Denmark.] In 2013, the German Federal Constitutional Court and the Regional Court of Bonn issued their judgements in two cases ‒ Varvarin and Kunduz respectively ‒ concerning Germany’s participation in the NATO-led operations in Serbia/Kosovo and Afghanistan. These judgments confirm and exemplify a general trend in domestic case...
This summer we will host our Third Annual Emerging Voices symposium, where we invite doctoral students and early-career academics or practicing attorneys to tell Opinio Juris readers about a research project or other international law topic of interest. If you are a doctoral student or in the early stages of your career (e.g., post-docs, junior academics or early career practitioners within...
[Philip Allott is Emeritus Professor of International Public Law at the University of Cambridge.] Interpretation of any text – religious, political, historical, scientific, literary, artistic, legal – raises profound philosophical problems. Interpretation of a legal text is in a class of its own, because it can have direct and substantial social effects, determining people’s lives. The philosophy of legal interpretation is...
[Fuad Zarbiyev is an Associate in the International Arbitration Group of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP.] The interpretation discourse in modern international law is dominated by a textualist paradigm. This claim may seem empirically wrong if it is taken to mean that nothing other than eo nomine textual arguments features in the international legal discourse. After all, the interpretive regime...