About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


27 Brti. Y.B. Int'l L. 376 (1950)
Sovereignty over Submarine Areas

handle is hein.journals/byrint27 and id is 382 raw text is: SOVEREIGNTY OVER SUBMARINE AREAS By PROFESSOR H. LAUTERPACHT, K.C., F.B.A. Whewell Professor of International Law in the University of Cambridge I SELDOM has an apparent major change in international law been accom- plished by peaceful means more rapidly and amidst more general acquies- cence and approval than in the case of the claims to submarine areas-the sea-bed and its subsoil-adjacent to the coast of littoral states. These areas have been generally described as the continental shelf. The latter term will be occasionally used in the present article for the sake of both convenience and abbreviation, although the two expressions are by no means identical. The continental shelf is a submarine area adjacent to the coast of the state. But the converse proposition is not necessarily true. In a great number of proclamations and enactments relating to the matter the term 'continental shelf' does not occur at all. In so far as that term has a well-defined geo- graphical connotation-a question which is somewhat controversial-it cannot be regarded as covering all situations arising out of the claim of states to exclusive jurisdiction and control over the sea-bed and its subsoil in the seas adjacent to their territories. The latter consideration brings into relief the fact, which it is proposed to elaborate here in greater detail, that the problems raised by the pro- clamations of the continental shelf cannot be resolved by reference to technical notions in the field of geography. Neither, being entirely novel in their nature, can they be satisfactorily explained by exclusive reference to some traditional concepts connected with acquisition of territorial sove- reignty. Essentially, the problem which has arisen in connexion with the continental shelf raises not only the question of application of existing international law but also of its adaptation to a situation which at the be- ginning of the twentieth century was not considered-if it was considered at all-to be within the realm of practical possibility. Accordingly, while account must be taken of such law as there is on the subject, the latter is only one factor in the situation. The other, equally essential, test is that of legitimate interests of states, viewed in che light of reasonableness and fair- ness, and of the requirements of the international community at large. It ,will be submitted in this article that the application of these tests leads to the result that there is no existing principle or rule of international law which is opposed to what, for the sake of brevity, may be called here the doctrine and the practice of the continental shelf and that the latter has See below, p. 383.