Three-stage Approach of Maritime Delimitation that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “has developed a settled jurisprudence relating to the interpretation of those provisions”, while quoting the Court’s description of the three-stage approach of first drawing a provisional delimitation line, then assessing that line in the light of the relevant circumstances of the case and finally applying the disproportionality test to determine whether the proposed boundary results in an equitable solution, which has been developed in the context of the delimitation of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone. “international law thus calls for the application of an equidistance line, unless another line is required by special circumstances”. However, the assertion that the ICJ’s three-stage approach is settled jurisprudence in relation to article 15 is not borne out by a reading of the judgments. The quotation in paragraph 999 of the Award is from the judgment of the Court in Peru v. Chile. As the Award indicates, the Court in this connection makes reference to its earlier decisions in Black Sea and Territorial and Maritime Dispute (Nicaragua v. Colombia). All three decisions discuss the three-stage approach in relation to the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf and there is nothing in these judgments suggesting that the Court considered that the three-stage approach applies equally to the delimitation of the territorial sea under article 15 of the Convention.
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