International Law of the Sea and Marine Affairs

First published in 1981 as the Offshore Information Guide this guide to information sources has been hailed internationally as an indispensable handbook for the oil, gas and marine industries.

This is the only independent collection of documents related to ocean affairs & the law of the sea, issued each year by international organizatios. It is arranged systematically & thereby gives the community of scholars & practitioners in ocean affairs & the law of the sea much improved access to essential documentation.

The fact that the Montego Bay Convention has been only ratified by 37 States at present and that it will be some time before the 60 ratifications required by Article 308 are achieved has not prevented states from acting in accordance with the rules drawn up by the Conference. Close on one hundred states have established either exclusive economic zones broadly modelled on Part V or 200-nautical-mile fishery zones and drawn on the principles laid down for exploiting living resources. Although these laws have been formulated unilaterally by states, international custom, since the judgement by the International Court of Justice in the Fisheries Case of 18 December 1951, is derived from concordant national rules. This shift began even before the Conference ended, and has been consolidated since then. Moreover, the régime governing the sea-bed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction defined by Part XI, which was the stumbling block of the Conference, is subject to transitional arrangements on the basis of two resolutions adopted in the Conferences Final Act, one providing for the establishment of a Preparatory Commission and the other on the preliminary activities of pioneer investors. This two-volume work, an earlier edition of which appeared in French, has been written by a team of experts of international renown. It presents an analysis of the Convention with an additional Chapter on the legal régime governing underwater archaeological and historical objects.