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The United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea (‘UNCLOS') is hailed as one of the most significant multilateral legal agreements executed in the past few decades. However, its shortcomings are neither trivial nor inconsequential, especially regarding maritime boundary disputes involving hydrocarbon resources. This monograph examines the relationship between UNCLOS and maritime boundaries in five non-polar regions, encompassing almost 90% of global unresolved disputes involving offshore hydrocarbon development. The regions, which include the eastern Mediterranean, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, northeast Asia, and the South China Sea, were chosen for their oil and gas resources potential and recent military skirmishes that have the potential to lead to wider regional confrontations. The book addresses each region's maritime boundary status in the context of specific articles within UNCLOS that have been exploited by disputing states to justify their overlapping claims. The history and future applicability of multilateral Joint Development Area agreements for each region are evaluated for their potential to provide a cooperative solution to resolve ongoing tensions. Highlighting the limitations of current ‘gun-boat'diplomacy, the monograph makes practical suggestions for new paradigms for resolving outstanding disputes, promoting lasting peace and generating economic benefits resulting from resource development.

Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, this book opens new ground for research on territorial disputes. Many sovereignty conflicts remain unresolved around the world. Current solutions in law, political science and international relations generally prove problematic to at least one of the agents part of these differences. Arguing that disputes are complex, multi-layered and multi-faceted, this book brings together a global, inter-disciplinary view of territorial disputes. The book reviews the key conceptual elements central to legal and political sciences with regards to territorial disputes: state, sovereignty and self-determination. Looking at some of the current long-standing disputes worldwide, it compares and contrasts the many issues at stake and the potential remedies currently available in order to assess why some territorial disputes remain unresolved. Finally, it offers a set of guidelines for dispute settlement and conflict resolution that current remedies fail to provide.It will appeal to students and scholars working in international relations, legal theory and jurisprudence, public international law and political sciences.

The settlement of the maritime boundary disputes between China and Japan in the East China Sea, and between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea, is politically deadlocked. While diplomatic settlement efforts have been ongoing for the past several decades, neither side in each case appears prepared to back down from its respective maritime and territorial claims. Several incidents at sea have occurred, prompting diplomatic protests, military standoffs, even exchange of fire. The existing status quo is inherently unstable and does not favour either side to the extent that it holds hostage the multiple benefits that could otherwise be generated from the exploitation of the seabed energy and mineral resources in the disputed waters, creating an urgent need for a meaningful discussion on finding a practical way forward. This monograph undertakes a comprehensive analysis of these disputes based on the rules and principles of international law, critically evaluating possible institutional designs of inter-State cooperation over seabed activities in disputed maritime areas and makes recommendations for the prospect of realising joint development regimes in the East China Sea and the Aegean to coordinate the exploration for and exploitation of resources without having resorted previously to boundary delimitation settlement.

Africa has experienced a number of territorial disputes over land and maritime boundaries, due in part to its colonial and post-colonial history. This book explores the legal, political, and historical nature of disputes over territory in the African continent, and critiques the content and application of contemporary International law to the resolution of African territorial and border disputes. Drawing on central concepts of public international law such as sovereignty and jurisdiction, and socio-political concepts such as colonialism, ethnicity, nationality and self-determination, this book interrogates the intimate connection that peoples and nations have to territory and the severe disputes these may lead to. Gbenga Oduntan identifies the major principles of law at play in relation to territorial, and boundary disputes, and argues that the predominant use of foreign based adjudicatory mechanisms in attempting to deal with African boundary disputes alienates those institutions and mechanisms from African people and can contribute to the recurrence of conflicts and disputes in and among African territories. He suggests that the understanding and application of multidisciplinary dispute resolution mechanisms and strategies can allow for a more holistic and effective treatment of boundary disputes.As an in depth study into the legal, socio-political and anthropological mechanisms involved in the understanding of territorial boundaries, and a unique synthesis of an African jurisprudence of international boundaries law, this book will be of great use and interest to students, researchers, and practitioners in African and Public International Law, International Relations, and decision-makers in need of better understanding the settlement of disputes over territorial boundaries in both Africa and the wider world.

Cet ouvrage examine des affaires entendues par des tribunaux internationaux en matière territoriale, aussi bien celles concernant l'occupation d'un territoire par une puissance étrangère que celles portant sur des conflits frontaliers. L'auteur procède à l'étude jurisprudentielle de treize décisions et examine les règles en matière d'acquisition territoriale, de protectorat, de mandat, de tutelle et même d'autodétermination, telles qu'elles avaient été convenues par et pour les puissances coloniales. Il s'interroge sur l'efficacité réelle du mode juridictionnel de règlement pacifique des conflits en le comparant avec la négociation, la médiation, la conciliation, le recours aux organisations internationales.