THE CODIFICATION OF THE LAW OF THE SEA
THE CODIFICATION OF THE LAW OF THE SEA

Summary/Abstract: During the 20th century, the evolution of the law of the sea is related to the tentative for its codification, initially promoted by the League of Nations (1930), and then by the United Nations (1958, 1960, 1973, 1982). The results have not always resulted in success, confirming the difficulty to draw up written rules that often result from opposing positions taken by the States or groups of States, because of their diverging interests. In the advancement of new technologies, the development of new activities such as navigation, fishing, customs protection, military defense, research, mining, they manifest also new concerns such as the protection of the marine environment through different types of pollution. At the end of adapting the legal rules to the new needs, is determined a break traditional conflict between the territorial sea, which is subjected to the sovereignty of the coastal state, and the high seas, where all of the states have a freedom of use. Therefore they established sui generis areas, adjacent to the territorial sea, where the coastal State has certain rights in relation to certain matters, but not full sovereignty. With the affirmation of these areas, there is the need to adapt new rules in order to balance the potentially conflicting activities, taking place in areas or spaces of different States. We can refer to the extraction of hydrocarbons by artificial platforms, or navigation, as well as the protection of the marine environment or the rational management of living resources. Such problems have characterized the work of the codification law of the sea process over the years. This paper will provide a general overview and will analyze the elements of the maritime law introduced in the principal conferences of codification of the law of the sea.

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