Law of the Sea: International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea Jurisprudence: Commentary, Case-Law Digest and the Reference Guide (1994 - 2014)

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea – Commentary, Case-Law Digest and the Reference Guide (1994 - 2014), is an outcome of the teaching, research and consultation experience that has been gathered while working in the field of law of the sea and public international law in general.

This work builds upon the academic and juristic work reflected in two volumes on the International Court of Justice, namely, the World Court Reference Guide 2002 and 2014 editions. This work will be helpful in learning the Tribunal’s decisive role in ascertaining, noting and developing the rules of law of the sea.

The case-law digest will also be useful to understand and put in a proper perspective the on-going debate of fragmentation of international law due to, among others, creation and functioning of various international courts and tribunals. Although the Tribunal does not possess legislative powers or the power to codify international law, its pronouncements in the law of the sea in the last two decades, reflect a different orientation in the future.

Advisory opinions rendered by the Tribunal particularly enable the readers to think of this emerging trend. Furthermore, the judicial activism which is largely seen in the domestic courts is slowly permeating through the Tribunal as well. One can see that the pronouncements extracted in form of case-law digest in this edition quite support this drift.

This edition is divided into four parts. The first part presents a concise assessment of the decision and explains the summary in the light of the Tribunal’s earlier jurisprudence and international law of the sea in general. Each commentary describes the facts of a particular case, the arguments of the parties involved and the decision of the Tribunal.

The second part provides case-law digest of legal maxims and extracts from cases that have been dealt by the Tribunal since its inception till September 2014. The third part describes the evolution of the history of each of the case and advisory opinions that has been dealt by the Tribunal. The fourth part contains ITLOS Rules of Procedure and Declarations made by States under the UNCLOS.”