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A “Constitution for the Oceans”: The Long Hard Road to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. By Kirsten Sellars. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2025. Pp. xvi, 372. Index.
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A “Constitution for the Oceans”: The Long Hard Road to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. By Kirsten Sellars. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2025. Pp. xvi, 372. Index.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 April 2026
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- © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of International Law
References
1 United Nations, Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (A Historical Perspective) (1998), at https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_historical_perspective.htm.
2 William Wertenbaker, A Reporter at Large: Law of the Sea– I, New Yorker, 38 (Aug. 1, 1983).
3 Surabhi Ranganathan, Decolonization and International Law: Putting the Ocean on the Map, J. Hist. Int’l L. 23, 161 (2021).
4 See notably Wertenbaker, supra note 2; William Wertenbaker, A Reporter at Large: Law of the Sea– II, New Yorker, 56 (Aug. 8, 1983); Clyde Sanger, Ordering the Oceans: The Making of the Law of the Sea (1987).
5 Surabhi Ranganathan, The Seabed and the South: From Stock Stories to New Histories of International Lawmaking, J. Hum. Rts. & Env’t 1, 14 (2023).
6 As in the subtitle of Sebenius’s study: see James K. Sebenius, Negotiating the Law of the Sea: Lessons in the Art and Science of Reaching Agreement (1984). See further Roger Fisher & William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving in (3d ed. 2011) (frequently uses the Law of the Sea conference to draw out lessons on how agreement can be reached).
7 Pars pro toto, see Tommy Koh, Negotiating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: a Practitioner’s Reflection, in The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties 539 (Simon Chesterman et al. eds., 2019); Jens Evensen, Working Methods and Procedures in the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, 199 Recueil des Cours 415 (1986); and many recollections collected in United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea at 30: Reflections (2013).
8 Fisheries (UK v. Nor.), Judgment, 1951 ICJ Rep. 116 (Dec. 18); Kirsten Sellars, A “Constitution for the Oceans”: The Long Hard Road to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 45–65 (2025).
9 See Convention on the Continental Shelf, Apr. 29, 1958, 499 UNTS 311; Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, Apr. 29, 1958, 516 UNTS 206.
10 See GA Res. 2749(XXV), Declaration of Principles Governing the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor, and the Subsoil Thereof, Beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction (Dec. 17, 1970).
11 Robin Churchill, Vaughan Lowe & Amy Sanders, The Law of the Sea 23 (4th ed. 2022).
12 See, e.g., Tullio Treves, Historical Development of the Law of the Sea, in The Oxford Handbook of the Law of the Sea 1, 23 (Donald R. Rothwell, Alex G. Oude Elferink, Karen N. Scott & Tim Stephens eds., 2015), (noting the “adapt[ion]” of the law of the sea “to encompass the coastal States’ claims to exclusive rights over broad areas of the sea”).
13 See, e.g., Elizabeth Mendenhall, The Ocean Governance Regime: International Conventions and Institutions, in Climate Change and Ocean Governance: Politics and Policy for Threatened Seas 27, 38 (Paul G. Harris ed., 2019).
14 See Wertenbaker, supra note 4; Sanger, supra note 4.