The Public Authority of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea

Abstract

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS” or “the Convention”) establishes a system for dispute settlement which constitutes an integral part of the Convention.1 As part of this system, States decided to establish a new, permanent tribunal specializing in law of the sea disputes, called the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (“ITLOS” or “the Tribunal”). The reason behind the creation of this new tribunal, alongside the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which had been the main forum for law of the sea disputes until then, was the high level of dissatisfaction on the part of many developing States with the ICJ following some of its controversial judgments.2 In other words, ITLOS came about as a demonstration of developing countries’ rejection of the ICJ’s authority. ITLOS was expected to be less conservative than the ICJ, more representative of various legal systems and the different regions of the world, as well as more accessible to non-State actors.3 As such, ITLOS was a timely response to the transformation of international society through globalization.4 The rationale behind the establishment of ITLOS and the fact that it is a permanent and specialized tribunal thus suggest that the Tribunal would become the judicial authority in the field of the law of the sea. I.