Negotiating The New Ocean Regime

The task of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (1967-82) was to create a new ocean regime. Participants negotiated every major issue of ocean use: jurisdiction in the coastal and contiguous zones, the territorial sea, and the new two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ); transit and overflight through straits and archipelagos; fisheries management in the EEZs and high seas; ocean environmental obligations; the right to conduct ocean science; and the management of deep seabed mineral exploitation. Negotiating the treaty required more than fifteen years and the consent of more than one hundred and fifty nations. The resulting treaty, composed of three hundred and twenty articles plus seven major annexes, represents the final product of the largest, longest, and most complex formal negotiation in modern times. Negotiating the New Ocean Regime analyzes both the substance of the problems at hand - what should be done about the oceans - and the process of the bargaining and negotiating. With law and history as a background, Robert Friedheim uses regime theory and resource economics to analyze ocean problems and bargaining/cooperation theory of negotiation. To evaluate the treaty through the eyes of the stakeholders, the author employs a multi-attribute utility model. Finally, he assesses the bargaining system - parliamentary diplomacy with consensus as the decisive rule - for its usefulness, limitations, and applicability to other current global problems.

One of the most creative innovations of the international diplomatic community in the 20th century was its invention of the international regime, a wrote Douglas M. Johnston in his last major work published posthumously (The Historical Foundations of World Order: The Tower and the Arena, Nijhoff, 2008). While regimes often provide order and certainty and a consequent reduction in disputes and misunderstandings, regimes are driven by specific concerns. With diverse disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives, the distinguished contributors to this tribute follow a long tradition of scholarly inquiry into the governance, creation, operation, viability and maintenance of international regimes. Their contributions on ocean and environmental regimes as diverse as fisheries, ocean dumping, maritime security, seafarersa (TM) rights, or enhancement of marine environmental protection attest to the depth to which modern international law and the underlying international relations have been transformed into an international law of structured cooperation. This book includes biographical and bibliographic notes on Douglas M. Johnston

The regime under which humankind has governed its uses of the ocean is in the process of change—shifting away from the traditional freedom of the seas toward a “mixed†system in which most of the valuable near-shore resources come under coastal jurisdiction. The transition to a new regime has been difficult for many states, most notably Japan, whose rights to use the entire ocean were well protected by the traditional regime. Japan’s response to the need to develop a modern ocean policy— to adapt to the emerging ocean management regime—is the subject of this multiauthor volume. U.S. and Japanese scholars look at what Japan is doing, how, and with what results. They first assess general trends in ocean management, then examine the role of Japan in the international political economy of the oceans, and finally look at Japan’s ocean policy in various sectors: shipbuilding, fisheries, mineral resources, offshore petroleum, and nuclear power generation. Given Japan’s importance in ocean affairs, the authors point out that the lessons that can be learned from its experience are of prime international importance.

The regime under which humankind has governed its uses of the ocean is in the process of change—shifting away from the traditional freedom of the seas toward a “mixed†system in which most of the valuable near-shore resources come under coastal jurisdiction. The transition to a new regime has been difficult for many states, most notably Japan, whose rights to use the entire ocean were well protected by the traditional regime. Japan’s response to the need to develop a modern ocean policy— to adapt to the emerging ocean management regime—is the subject of this multiauthor volume. U.S. and Japanese scholars look at what Japan is doing, how, and with what results. They first assess general trends in ocean management, then examine the role of Japan in the international political economy of the oceans, and finally look at Japan’s ocean policy in various sectors: shipbuilding, fisheries, mineral resources, offshore petroleum, and nuclear power generation. Given Japan’s importance in ocean affairs, the authors point out that the lessons that can be learned from its experience are of prime international importance.

Ocean Law Debates: The 50-Year Legacy and Emerging Issues for the Years Ahead offers historical perspectives on the ocean-law debates of the 1960s and after, leading to the signing of UNCLOS in 1982, along with perceptive analyses of various key current-day issues, including climate change, biodiversity in the Area Beyond National Jurisdiction, seabed mining, genetic prospecting, and the geopolitics of Marine Protected Areas.

Toward a Sustainable Whaling Regime

With this volume, Arend contends that international law and international legal institutions are an important element of international relations.