The Development of the Case Law of Maritime Delimitation: From Equity to Normativity

In parallel with the codification process in the 1958 Geneva Conventions and the 1982 UNCLOS, the law of maritime delimitation was subject to a progressive development through litigation and arbitration. Both processes were at the same time independent and interrelated. The scope of this part is to provide a broad historical background of the evolution of the case law of maritime delimitation in order to better analyze in the following section the conditions, under which the Equidistance/Relevant Circumstances principle had emerged and developed.

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Codification of Maritime Delimitation

The first attempt at codification of the customary law of maritime delimitation started with the 1930 Hague Conference under the auspices of the League of Nations. The Hague Conference failed to reach its purpose and the following World War II period was not an appropriate period to deal with issues of maritime delimitation. In the aftermath of World War II, the creation of the United Nations Organization (UN) and the multiple individual claims of States over maritime spaces, such as the Truman Proclamation and the Santiago Declaration raised the need of re-starting the process of codification of the law of maritime delimitation. The adoption of the 1958 Geneva Conventions which followed was a successful initiative, at least to some extent.

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