UNCLOS Tribunals and the Development of the Outer Continental Shelf Regime

Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) sets out the legal regime governing the novel ‘continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles’ or ‘the outer continental shelf’. As Article 76 contains a complex interface between law and science, its interpretation and application raises intricate issues, with which no international court or tribunal had dealt with substantively before 2012. The UNCLOS dispute settlement bodies were the first international tribunals to provide answers to long-standing questions surrounding the meaning and application of several important, but ambiguous or controversial, legal terms employed under Article 76. As such, the decisions rendered by the UNCLOS tribunals have been seen as playing an important role in elucidating the legal regime of the outer continental shelf. This article queries this assessment by critically examining whether and to what extent the relevant pronouncements made by UNCLOS tribunals have contributed to clarifying and developing the law governing the outer continental shelf regime under UNCLOS.