Law of the Sea

[Tamsin Phillipa Paige is a Lecturer at Deakin Law School. Douglas Guilfoyle is an Associate Professor at UNSW Canberra and Rob McLaughlin is a Professor at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources & Security, University of Wollongong.] In Part One of this blog series we considered the ways in which international law addresses severing submarine data cables outside armed conflict,...

[Tamsin Phillipa Paige is a Lecturer at Deakin Law School. Douglas Guilfoyle is an Associate Professor at UNSW Canberra and Rob McLaughlin is a Professor at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources & Security, University of Wollongong.] In early 2008 careless mooring of a ship off the coast of Egypt, to avoid inclement weather, broke a submarine data cable and caused an internet...

[Danilo Ruggero Di Bella is a lawyer at Bottega Di Bella.] This analysis outlines how Greece could raise a claim under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) against Turkey, following the latter’s trespass on Greek continental shelf. The analysis starts off reporting the recent developments in the Aegean Sea concerning the escalation of the conflict between the two countries. Then it argues why the ECT may play a...

[Deepak Raju is a senior associate at Sidley Austin LLP, Geneva. The views expressed in this article are exclusively those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Sidley Austin LLP and its partners.] The “non-incidental” consequence of “incidental” jurisdiction: Where the tail wags the dog On the merits of the dispute, the parties disagreed on whether India had violated...

I truly enjoyed reading Monica Hakimi’s “Making Sense of Customary International Law” (CIL). It is an exceptional paper, where Monica elegantly brings the entire concept of CIL back to the drawing board. The argument, I believe, can only be properly understood if the reader takes a few steps back and accepts that international law is a construct built by the assembling and disassembling of different legal...

[Arron N. Honniball is a Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law (CIL), National University of Singapore, Singapore. Funding was provided to CIL by a Singapore Maritime Institute Grant (SMI-2019-MA-03).] Introduction Part I of this two-part post reviewed the M/V Wise Honest’s final voyage against the UNSC framework that prohibits such illicit trafficking by sea, followed by the rights and practice...

[Arron N. Honniball is a Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law (CIL), National University of Singapore, Singapore. Funding was provided to CIL by a Singapore Maritime Institute Grant (SMI-2019-MA-03).] Introduction The M/V Wise Honest (IMO 8905490) was, since 17 November 2016, a North Korean owned and flagged cargo ship engaged in numerous violations of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions,...

[Dr. Michael Kearney is a legal researcher with Al-Haq.] A March 2020 Amicus Brief submitted by Palestinian human rights organisations, including Al-Haq, to the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court suggested that the Court’s territorial jurisdiction extends to Palestine’s Exclusive Economic Zone. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), a jurisdictional space derived from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, was proclaimed by Palestine in September 2019....

[Danilo Ruggero Di Bella is a lawyer at Bottega Di Bella.] This year the Treaty of Paris laying out the status of the archipelago of Spitsbergen (Svalbard) has turned 100-year-old, yet the issues dealt with therein could not be more topical. Tensions are rising among the Contracting Parties to the 1920 Treaty of Paris for the exploitation of the natural resources of Svalbard. These tensions are rooted in...

[Paolo Busco is a member of Twenty Essex Chambers, where he practices in the field of public international law. All opinions are expressed in a personal capacity only.] Rescuing people in distress at sea is a duty. However, does international law require a coastal State to open its ports or territorial sea to foreign ships involved in the rescue? The question is not new, especially in...