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AbstractA number of maritime delimitation disputes, the resolution of which has been referred to international courts or tribunals, include overlapping outer continental shelf claims without relevant recommendations from the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in support of the claimed entitlements. The case law of courts and tribunals regarding the exercise of jurisdiction over such disputes has developed and appears now somewhat crystallized in a common understanding. Yet numerous uncertainties remain, which have arisen from the non-homogeneous approaches that underlie the decisions of courts and tribunals to exercise jurisdiction in the absence of recommendations from the CLCS. While courts and tribunals share the view that delimitation necessarily requires a prior determination of entitlement, differences appear in defining the threshold for ascertaining such a determination. In any event, treating submissions to delimit such claimed overlaps as admissible in the absence of recommendations from the CLCS may entail significant risks. Where a plea is considered admissible, a court or tribunal will not have unfettered discretion as to whether to exercise jurisdiction. This may result in unfortunate situations as it cannot be assumed that the CLCS will accept coastal states' proposed outer limits of the continental shelf.

AbstractThe establishment of a compulsory dispute settlement mechanism in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is intended to be the guarantor of the proper application of the convention. Yet the decisions of courts and tribunals seized pursuant to the procedures under Section 2 of Part XV of UNCLOS are in many regards difficult to reconcile and in some regards unable to form the basis for a jurisprudence constante. This article examines on an empirical basis the scope and limits of the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism under UNCLOS, as applied by international courts and tribunals during a period of twenty years since the first decision in the Southern Bluefin Tuna case until the recent decision on preliminary objections in the Dispute Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

Abstract: The sovereign and exclusive rights of States to explore the continental shelf and exploit its resources implies an unfettered right to exclude any exploitation by a third State of hydrocarbons that are located on its continental shelf. Yet, these rights do not allow impairment to the sovereign and exclusive rights of third States to exploit resources that extend onto their continental shelves. State practice demonstrates multiple definitions of hydrocarbon deposits implying that the decision of whether a hydrocarbon deposit is transboundary may vary depending on the relevant treaty provision. State practice also indicates heterogeneous procedural and substantive approaches to the commencement of transboundary hydrocarbon deposits exploitation. These differences have substantive implications relevant to the determination of the constitutive elements of transboundary hydrocarbon deposits and for the circumstances under which a transboundary hydrocarbon deposit can operate under customary international law.

AbstractThe legal and technical issues relating to the outer continental shelf entitlements in the Central Arctic Ocean present several challenges, most of which are to be resolved in accordance with Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Recently, two coastal States in the Central Arctic Ocean have made fully fledged submissions relating to the Arctic to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Russia has made a revised submission that is currently being considered by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The submission of Denmark/Greenland will most likely only be considered in 10 or 15 years time.

In a series of judgments over the last few years, the CFI declined jurisdiction to determine whether EC regulations which transposed UN Security Council resolutions into the EC legal order were contrary to fundamental rights. These judgments thus called into question the traditional relationship between European law and international law and the oft–repeated mantra that the EC Treaty has established a complete system of legal remedies. However, on appeal in Kadi and Al Barakaat, the ECJ overturned the CFI's findings and reinstated the "traditional" position of the Community Courts
This article analyses the reasons for the CFI's apparent break with previous orthodoxy and the justifications put forward by the CFI to support such a move. It starts by briefly recalling how fundamental rights were introduced by the ECJ into the EC legal order. It then discusses the interaction between the Community Courts and the European Court of Human Rights and how the ECJ's judgment in Kadi and Al Barakaat takes this interaction a step further. Finally, the article reviews the traditional relationship between EC law and international law, how the CFI's judgments modified that relationship in relation to UN law, and why the ECJ was right to reject such a change.