Jurisdictional Aspects of Dispute Settlement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: Some Recent Developments
In: New Zealand Yearbook of International LawSearch for other papers by Gino Naldi in
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Abstract
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“unclos”) contains a discrete section, pt xv, which is dedicated to dispute settlement and obligatory for states parties, and contains a mixture of voluntary and compulsory procedures. These provisions are complex and a determination of their precise meaning calls for authoritative interpretation. It does not seem unfair to state that the unclos dispute settlement procedures have been relatively underutilised since its entry into force in 1994. Few early cases addressed contentious issues regarding compulsory jurisdiction, though one proved exceptionally controversial. Hence, many questions relating to the meaning and scope of the provisions on jurisdiction either remained unanswered or required further elucidation, a matter of academic speculation. However, since 2013, there has been a sudden increase in the number of cases submitted to the unclos dispute settlement procedures. Many of these cases share features in common, namely, contested jurisdiction and even instances of non-appearance, which necessitated addressing a range of issues concerning the jurisdictional provisions of the unclos dispute settlement system. The conclusions of the courts and tribunals on jurisdictional issues, many of them controversial, help to inform, clarify, develop and contribute to the debate on the interpretation and scope of the unclos dispute settlement system.