How long does it take to negotiate an international legal treaty? The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) took two years. The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984) took longer, roughly six years. It is, however, the Substitute with: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”) (1982) that breaks a few records with over 50 years of negotiations, as Kirsten Sellars explores in her book, A ‘Constitution for the Oceans’: The Long Hard Road to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The author clarifies from the outset that her enquiry will focus on the treaty-making processes that underpinned UNCLOS from 1930 to 1982. Most interestingly, the nine chapters of the book promise to retrace the creation of UNCLOS through the words of the delegates who participated in the negotiations. In doing so, the author situates these text-making works in the wider political and socio-economic landscape of international relations.

Chapter 1 opens with the voyage of the British schooner I’m Alone, anchored off the coast of Louisiana in 1929. The anchorage of the I’m Alone, as Sellars reports, stirred a dispute on who – the British or the Americans – had jurisdiction over the ship (pp. 1–4). Several diplomatic exchanges followed the case of the I’m Alone, providing a segway to introduce the Codification Conference, convened by the League of Nations, which took place in 1930 in The Hague. Sellars then leads the reader through the conference proceedings, exploring the role of the delegates, highlighting the different negotiation styles and shedding light on the alliances that were created throughout these processes. The author also unpacks some technical elements such as the difficulties encountered by the dignitaries to establish the breadth of the territorial waters and to define the “contiguous zone”.

Sellars continues her enquiry on the development of a “Constitution for the Oceans” with a second chapter devoted to the Corfu Channel and Fisheries cases, decided in 1949 and 1951 respectively. As she contends, these landmark cases heard before the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) “would move the debate forward after the Second World War and exert a strong influence over the law of the sea conventions that followed” (p. 27). Both the Corfu Channel and Fisheries cases were initiated by the UK, with Sellars observing that the cases foreground Britain’s “approach to the law of the sea that attempted to preserve traditional freedoms of navigation while also recognising coastal states’ expanded jurisdictional claims over resources” (p. 27). Here again, the author engages with the diplomatic exchanges, unveiling the discussions that substantiated each state’s pleadings – in Corfu Channel Britain’s counterpart was Albania, whilst in Fisheries it was Norway. Overall, this chapter investigates many technical aspects concerning the law of the sea – such as innocent passage or the starting point of the baseline – engaging with the technological advancements that shaped both cases. Accompanying the reader through the states’ arguments, Sellars provides a fresh perspective on the cases, enriched by in-depth reflections of the diplomats, who are the protagonists of the investigation once again.

“North, South, East and West” is the title of the third chapter which focuses on the decade starting in 1950. As concerns regarding the conservation of marine living resources started to rise in those years, delegates prepared to gather to discuss an international treaty to govern the oceans, this time in Geneva. Sellars explores the first UN Law of the Sea Conference with a focus on the wider political context – primarily, the Cold War. As she highlights, however, “the major disputes were not between East and West but […] between the Western powers themselves and between North and South” (p. 69). As part of Sellars’s enquiry, many power dynamics shaping the negotiations are explored, including, for instance, the “India-Mexico plan” (p. 79). After a discussion on the main points covered during the conference – including, for example, the conservation of fish stocks and the continental shelf – the author concludes with some of the dignitaries’ views on the results of the conference: the 1958 Geneva Conventions. One issue, though, remained unsolved again, namely the lack of a decision on the breadth of the territorial sea.

Chapter 4 is devoted to the second UN Law of the Sea Conference, held in Geneva in 1960. Sellars’s reconstruction of the negotiations is again sustained by her attentiveness to the many power dynamics underpinning the discussions. For instance, she explores the Indian delegation’s strong position on innocent passage. Indeed, according to India, “warships and submarines should not be given the automatic right of innocent passage through the territorial sea” (p. 113). Overall, though the 1960 Conference was deemed a failure, Sellars importantly discusses the efforts of states of the South to challenge “traditional conceptions of [the] law of the sea” (p. 135) as “they had put the powers on notice that their interests could no longer be ignored” (p. 136).

In 1967, the Maltese Ambassador to the United Nations, Arvid Pardo, gave a famous speech proposing to “internationalise the seabed beyond national jurisdiction” and introducing the idea of the “common heritage of mankind” (p. 138). Bridging the 1960s and the 1970s, Chapter 5 deals with these two elements and relies on Pardo’s speech and subsequent proposals of the Maltese delegation to shape the structure and inform the content of the chapter. Focusing on the diverse economic interests of states, Sellars explores “the debate about the exploitation of seabed resources” (p. 150), highlighting the alliances amongst powers. As she notes, with negotiations underway, “[s]ome G77 members thought the industrial powers were manipulating the common heritage idea for their own ends” (p. 162). Sellars here relies on Mohammed Bedjaoui’s Towards a New International Economic Order (Paris and New York 1979) exposing the more powerful states’ misuse of the notion of “common heritage of mankind” to exploit Third World countries, setting aside discussions on equitable distribution of resources.

Chapter 6 focuses on the issue of “Passage through Straits”, drawing on the lengthy third UN Law of the Sea Conference which lasted from 1973 to 1982. In the background, as Sellars illustrates, lured the Soviets’ increasing maritime power. In this context of heightened insecurity, both the USSR and the US focused their negotiating efforts on submarines and, in particular, nuclear submarines (p. 170). Embarking first on an exploration of some key issues – including “free transit” (p. 172), navigation through straits (p. 177), oil transport via the Malacca-Singapore straits (p. 179) – the author delves then into the negotiations. Sellars secures the reader with an engaging exploration of the Conference, following the many journeys of the delegates from New York, to Caracas, to Geneva, to Montego Bay, debating the issue of passage through straits and how it was cemented into the final version of UNCLOS.

“The Archipelagic Concept” is the title and the primary object of enquiry of Chapter 7. Sellars starts by drawing out the initial impetus given by Indonesia and the Philippines “in the mid-fifties for the recognition of their special archipelagic status” (p. 208). The discussion moves then to the third UN Law of the Sea Conference where the “archipelagic concept” was also debated. The intricacies of the dignitaries’ discussions are disentangled by Sellars for the remaining pages of this chapter which culminates with the end of the negotiations on archipelagos, in 1977. The agreement on archipelagos, concludes the author, “was indeed a great achievement for Indonesia, and for the other archipelagic states [notwithstanding] the considerable concessions Jakarta had made over passage rights” (p. 241).

Chapter 8 provides an interesting perspective on the role of the G77 States at the third UN Law of the Sea Conference. Sellars discusses the internal divisions of the group such as the fractions of “the territorialists and the patrimonialists, and between the coastal states and the landlocked and geographically disadvantaged states” (p. 245). These dynamics are then incorporated in a discussion on the negotiations devolved to the creation of the economic zone (p. 247), the continental shelf (p. 250) and the regulation of military activities in both these maritime zones (p. 256). The author also reports insightful conversations amongst dignitaries such as one between the Soviet deputy sovereign minister Semyon P. Kozyrev and the American secretary of state Henry Kissinger (pp. 261–62). The role of the G77 States is explored at length in the initiative of the Mexican delegation leader, Jorge Castañeda, to solve the interrelated issues concerning the economic zone (p. 264). Yet, Castañeda’s subsequent draft proposal was not fully accepted.

The last substantive chapter of the book picks up on the fragmented state of the international community of states as the conclusive phases of the negotiations took place, with a focus on seabed mining. This was a very insidious topic that occupied delegates for nine years, as Sellars investigates. The chapter spans across years of negotiations starting with Kissinger’s proposal on technology transfer (p. 299). At the end of the treaty-making process, however, Joseph Warioba of the Tanzanian delegation noted that the outcome in the final text was “contrary to the assurances made by Kissinger in 1976” on technology transfer and the equitable distribution of resources (p. 319). The author concludes by leaving the reader with the image of Pardo receiving a standing ovation after UNCLOS was opened for signature on 10 December 1982.

This book constitutes a commendable effort to reconstruct the negotiations that led to UNCLOS in 1982, closely following the delegates’ work. A particularly interesting insight is provided in Chapter 8, when the G77 comes to the fore. As Sellars pertinently recalls in the Afterword, Substitute with the following sentence (that is paraphrasing the original quote): the G77 States were not successful in using the law of the sea negotiations to advance a new international economic order (p. 324). Perhaps the most important contribution of this book is the refining of the economic reasons driving Western powers to successfully orient the negotiations of UNCLOS and its final text specifically through the words of the delegates and the relations established among them. This discussion also prompts us to ask ourselves: was UNCLOS truly ever a “Constitution for the Oceans”? Furthermore, the book makes the reader wonder not so much whether UNCLOS is fit for purpose in light of new issues including the challenges of climate change; rather, it seems more pertinent to enquire whether UNCLOS ever was fit for purpose. Overall, Sellars’ contribution pointedly reminds us that international law shapes international relations and vice versa, providing an inspirational experience for the reader into the depths of diplomatic relations and their role in shaping the world.