Sea-Bed Energy and Minerals: The International Legal Regime

This first book in a three-volume work on Sea-Bed Energy and Minerals: The International Legal Regime is concerned with the law governing the exploitation of energy and mineral resources in two quite different sub-marine areas. Volume 1 deals with the areas within the limits of national jurisdiction, that is, all of the submarine areas extending from the coast to the seaward limit of the continental shelf. As its subtitle indicates, this volume is predominantly concerned with The Continental Shelf. Although the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has still not entered into force, and, indeed, may not do so for many years for some of the major maritime powers, its adoption in 1982 did, nonetheless, usher in a period of relative stability in the rules governing the areas within national jurisdiction, including, in particular, the continental shelf. However, being the creatures of compromise, some of its rules are undeniably vague and it has been left to State practice and international courts and tribunals to develop these rules further, especially those relating to the delimitation of the continental shelf between neighbouring States. Volume 1 provides an analysis of the rules of conventional and custromary law in the light of this practice. Volume 2, on Sea-Bed Mining, deals with the area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, that is, the submarine area lying seaward of the outer limit of the continental shelf. Volume 3, which will be published at the same time as Volume 2, will provide Documents, Tables and Bibliography relating to the subject matter of the first two volumes.