The Rules of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a judicial institution created by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, began its activities on 1 October 1996. Together with the Statute of the Tribunal (Annex VI to the Convention), the Rules of the Tribunal, adopted on 28 October 1997, govern the functioning of the Tribunal and the proceedings before it. The objective of this Commentary is to give to legal practitioners and academics a detailed analysis of the provisions contained in the Rules. In doing so, the contributors, who are Judges of the Tribunal or members of its Registry, paid particular attention to the practice and the jurisprudence of the Tribunal as well as to the corresponding provisions in the Rules of the International Court of Justice.

Review:

Given the contemporary scholarship phenomenon of commentaries on various international court rules [...], this work comes highly recommended for any serious research or practice collection which even tangentially addresses Law of the Sea issues. The editors have done a remarkable job of mining the rich vein of materials which have finally surfaced in this lasting contribution to Law of the Sea literature UN21 Interest Group Newsletter, Issue #37