Search: UNCLOS

...the START treaty currently being renegotiated or the older SALT treaties or many SOFAs that exist today. And then there are competing acronyms; the earlier reference to UNCLOS has little appeal to its opponents, who prefer to refer to that treaty as LOST. So what are my FILAs? Actually, I tend to appreciate acronyms that suggest a drafting committee had a sense of humor about their project. I’m pretty sure, for example, that in devising a POPRC, the treaty-makers were not merely creating a very interesting example of international delegation,...

...Life at Sea (SOLAS) and the SAR Convention. French and British authorities, therefore, have a duty to cooperate to prevent loss of life at sea and ensure completion of a search and rescue mission. While seeking accountability for failure to rescue or to cooperate under the Law of Sea is possible in theory, the regime remains fundamentally a State-centred one – with individuals generally deprived of locus standi before the dispute resolution measures under UNCLOS including the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Accountability gaps in such...

...September 26-27, 2012 on the topic of “The Law and Practice of the International Criminal Court: Achievements, Impact and Challenges”. The conference will take place at the Peace Palace, The Hague, The Netherlands. More information and registration can be found here. The British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) and the Law Society of Northern Ireland will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the opening for signature of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”) with a conference in Belfast, Ireland on November 22-23, 2012. More...

...but my sense is that the district court opinion is intended to aid the Fourth Circuit in reaching what I think is the correct result in Said — that the treaty language is controlling. Since Somalia is a party to UNCLOS (as are 160 other nations), it hardly seems unfair to consider the pirates to have fair notice of its provisions, whereas it seems more of a stretch to consider them on notice of an 1820 decision of a foreign supreme court. Judge Davis’s opinion in Hasan is available here....

...the same time it is forbidden under UNCLOS from hampering transit passage in any way and is by law required to give publicity to any danger to navigation. In its Wimbledon Case the PCIJ ruled that there was a general rule embodied in Art. 380 of the Treaty of Versailles granting full access to vessels of commerce and war to the Kiel Canal. As Germany is the only country that has control over this waterway it holds a dominant position. The same goes for the 1901 Hay-Pauncefote treaty on the...

...the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the “constitution for the oceans” (T.T.B. Koh), was adopted more than 40 years ago. Is it more resilient in the face of today’s crises compared to other bodies of international law? Or does this body of law require further adaptability and contingent action? In an effort to address this question and in light of these dynamic developments, the UNYB issues a special call for papers providing contributors with a thematic forum to critically assess the law of the sea...

This week on Opinio Juris, Kristen Boon followed up on her discussion last week about changes towards more transparency and fairness in the UN’s Al Qaida sanctions regime. Craig Allen contributed a guest post on the ITLOS’ interim order for the release by Ghana of Argentina’s ARA Libertad. UNCLOS was also central to Duncan Hollis’ post on China’s submission to the Continental Shelf Commission in relation to the dispute regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Peggy McGuinness congratulated Diane Amann, Leila Sadat and Patricia Sellers on their appointments as special advisor to...

...legal problems which may arise in the carrying out of the programmes to explore outer space”. However, by their first meeting, only two states had launched a grand total of just 20 satellites. They had no template to reference – the Antarctic Treaty was only halfway negotiated and not yet drafted, while the four treaties from UNCLOS I left key questions unanswered. The few scholars who’d considered law in space by then had taken one giant leap into becoming punchlines – a joke retold this summer on The Good Fight....

...this is a separate matter. It does not, in my mind, justify reading a formality-condition into the text of 87(5)(b). The phrase “enters into” used in 87(5)(b) does not change my view on this. States can just as easily enter into informal arrangements or agreements as formal ones (see e.g. Articles 74(3) and 83(3) UNCLOS, by which States are to “enter into provisional arrangements of a practical nature”). Would the interpretation I suggest make 87(5)(b) “bizarre or possibly counterproductive”? Let’s deal with bizarre first. I would be hard pressed to...

...Administration decide to bypass the Senate in consenting to the Minamata Convention? Perhaps the Senate indicated to the Obama Administration that they would not object to having this treaty concluded as an executive agreement? Or, maybe the statutory authority (would love further details on what it is) is more robust than in the ACTA context. Alternatively, I wonder, if this isn’t the Obama Administration response to the Senate’s repeated intransigence lately to approve any of the Administration’s major treaty priorities; from the Disabilities Convention to UNCLOS, the Senate’s been pretty...

...a document provided by a local politician. Oceania East Timor has called in the United Nations (UNCLOS) to help resolve its bitter dispute with Australia over a permanent sea border in the oil-rich Timor Sea. New Zealand’s government on Monday said it would begin a review of its foreign trust laws after leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm highlighted vulnerabilities in its legal framework that made it a possible link in international tax avoidance structures. UN/World Global warming is shifting the way the Earth wobbles on its polar axis,...

...in Cyberspace. Julian Ku posted about the new evidence in the Center for Constitutional Rights’ International Criminal Court complaint against the Catholic Church, and was amazed by recent poll figures suggesting that Britons hold a negative view of the European Convention on Human Rights. He also discussed that the Philippines are unlikely to get China to ITLOS over the South China Sea dispute because China frames its claims as territorial sovereignty rather than as an issue of the boundaries of a state’s EEZ under UNCLOS. Kevin Heller discussed a BBC...