Competing over the continental shelf: the legal versus the geophysical entitlements

For the past decades, international courts and tribunals have eluded the question of whether a State’s entitlement to a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles (nm) may extend within 200 nm of another State. The opacity around this question steered the International Court of Justice to surprisingly divide its oral proceedings in the pending dispute between Nicaragua and Colombia, so that it could address this legal predicament first. In similar circumstances, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea asked Mauritius and The Maldives to deal with the same question. While this is not the first time an international court or tribunal is asked to delimit a continental shelf beyond 200 nm, it will be the first where the ‘legal’ and the ‘geophysical’ entitlements enshrined in Article 76(1) of UNCLOS face each other. This article examines the current state of international law and proposes that the overlap between both entitlements is legally permissible, but the ‘legal’ entitlement enjoys further normative strength and will guide the equitable delimitation of the continental shelf.