The Legal Regime of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction Viewed through the Lenses of Power, Knowledge, Justice and Space

Abstract

When we embarked on the journey that eventually brought us to this concluding chapter, we as editors had some general idea about what might be expected in terms of outcomes in relation to the four themes of the project that we had selected, ie power, knowledge, justice and space.1 Having read and commented upon all of the chapters of our contributors on various occasions, we are fully convinced that this was a journey worth undertaking. All contributors, through the analysis of their individual topics, offer their own perspective on the themes. In doing so, the individual chapters both display commonalities and variations. In this concluding chapter we cannot possibly do justice to the rich harvest that our contributors have to offer, nor do we need to do that. The chapters are there to be read. What we do want to do in this concluding chapter is look at the broader picture. What are these main commonalities and variations in relation to the themes that we identified? Apart from revisiting the four themes, the current chapter also intends to reflect on a number of other issues that we consider deserve separate mention in the concluding chapter of a book dealing with the legal regime of areas beyond national jurisdiction (abnj). These issues are linked to the four themes of the book, but by also considering them separately we will be able to add more focus and detail. As a consequence, the remainder of this chapter is set up as follows. Section 2 revisits the themes of power, knowledge, justice and space. The themes are first discussed separately, while the final subsection looks at their interlinkages. The chapter finishes with two other issues that come up throughout the chapters of this volume. Section 3 looks at the relationship between abnj and areas within national jurisdiction (awnj), while section 4 considers the future