Law of the Sea Commons^™

Paving A Path To Independent Tiny Living: An Introduction To Roadblocks, Jaclyn Troutner

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

“Tiny living” is a growing trend in which small-scale, ecoconscious housing is used as an alternative means for homeownership. Tiny homes are smaller than the average detached home with the appearance and character of a traditional freestanding residential home. They are one-story, single-occupant dwellings and usually constructed on a trailer base for towing. State-of-the-art building techniques provide a lower environmental burden and utility cost per square foot. Due to their smaller size, tiny homes are cheaper with an average price of $52,000, opening a wider door to home ownership. The typical design is to include all the standard amenities and …

Rulemaking Doubletake: An Opportunity To Repair And Strengthen The National Environmental Policy Act, Rachel Keylon

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Introduction

In the middle of the twentieth century, there was a turning point in the United States and around the world in the understanding of the human relationship with the natural environment and natural resources. It was a shift from a perspective of natural resources endlessly available for exploitation to a perspective that natural resources are finite, and conservation and preservation are necessary to ensure that these resources are available for future generations. The accumulation of chronic environmental degradation, such as the unchecked proliferation of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, pollution to the nation’s waters, loss of land to erosion, …

About Sdlp

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

The Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief (ISSN 1552-3721) is a student-run initiative at American University Washington College of Law that is published twice each academic year. The Brief embraces an interdisciplinary focus to provide a broad view of current legal, political, and social developments. It was founded to provide a forum for those interested in promoting sustainable economic development, conservation, environmental justice, and biodiversity throughout the world.

Because our publication focuses on reconciling the tensions found within our ecosystem, it spans a broad range of environmental issues such as sustainable development; trade; renewable energy; environmental justice; air, water, and …

Editor's Note, Juliette Jackson, Bailey Nickoloff

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Dear Readers,

For more than two decades, the Sustainable Development Law and Policy Brief (SDLP) remains true to its mission of providing innovative solutions to some of the most important legal issues related to environmental law, energy law, and natural resources law. We are honored to be the Editors-in-Chief during these unprecedented times in our history, as we witnessed a historical presidential election and now enter the third year of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Despite these unparalleled times, the SDLP staff brought our readership another great issue.

In this issue, our authors provide an in-depth analysis into current regulations and …

Does The Revised U.S. South China Sea Policy Go Far Enough?, Raul (Pete) Pedrozo

International Law Studies

The United States issued a statement on July 13, 2020, outlining the U.S. Position on Maritime Claims in the South China Sea. The statement supplements existing U.S. policy for the South China Sea, making clear that the People’s Republic of China’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are unlawful. Still, the revised U.S. policy does not go far enough to contest China's faulty claims in the South China Sea. This article proposes specific issues that the revised U.S. policy should address.

Arctic Conflicts & Russian Foreign Policy, Tania Röttger, Theocharis N. Grigoriadis

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

In this paper, we analyze the intersections of legal and political dispute resolution methods in Arctic territorial disputes involving Russia and several Western governments, including Canada and the United States. There are two current disputes. The first dispute concentrates on the Lomonosov Ridge, a geological feature that runs near the North Pole and has been used by three states to claim the North Pole as part of their continental shelf. The second dispute deals with the legal status of the Northern Sea Route. Our paper evaluates the tradeoffs between the legal and political constraints in these disputes between Russia and …

Leading Expert On The Law Of The Sea: Remembering Rear Admiral Bruce A. Harlow, Jagc, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

International Law Studies

Volume 99 of International Law Studies is dedicated to the memory of Rear Admiral Bruce A. Harlow, JAGC, U.S. Navy (Ret.), March 18, 1932 — March 3, 2021.

Navigating The Structural Coherence Of Sea Life, Aldo Chircop, Philip Steinberg, Greta Ferloni, Claudio Aporta, Gavin Bridge, Kate Coddington, Stuart Elden, Stephanie C. Kane, Timo Koivurova, Jessica Shadian, Anna Stammler-Gossmann

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Ice breaking by ships can cause irreparable harm to the ecologies and cultures of northern regions. This chapter revolves around a central question: what are the barriers preventing the development of a legal mechanism to limit this act of environmental violence? The chapter suggests that the central barrier is not so much legal as it is ontological: foundational conceptions of space that underpin Western legal institutions are unable to value the form of water, reducing it instead to an ed space that is used for movement or resource extraction. This chapter demonstrates how a consideration of the environmental violence of …

Maritime Transportation: Let's Slow Down A Bit, Maxime Sèbe, Pierre Scemama, Anne Choquet, Jean-Luc Jung, Aldo Chircop, Phénia Marras-Aït Razouk, Sylvain Michel, Valérie Stiger-Pouvreau, Laura Recuero-Virto

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Maritime transportation is a major contributor to the world economy, but has significant social and environmental impacts. Each impact calls for different technical or operational solutions. Amongst these solutions, we found that speed reduction measures appear to mitigate several issues: (1) collision with wildlife; (2) collision with non-living objects; (3) underwater noise; (4) invasive species; and (5) gas emission. We do not pretend that speed reduction is the best solution for each individual issue mentioned in this paper, but we argue that it could be a key solution to significantly reduce these threats all together. Further interdisciplinary research is required …

How Icebreaking Governance Interacts With Inuit Rights And Livelihoods In Nunavut: A Policy Review, Breanna Bishop, Jade Owen, Lisette Wilson, Tagalik Eccles, Aldo Chircop, Lucia Fanning

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Sea ice is a contested space when it comes to navigation in ice-covered regions. For Inuit in Nunavut, Canada, sea ice is an integral platform of coastal connectivity, allowing access to areas of subsistence and cultural value. For vessels transiting Arctic waters, sea ice poses potential risks to vessel, crew, and passenger safety consequently, icebreaking is considered an essential service. Yet, many communities in Nunavut have described icebreaking as having, or potentially having significant negative impacts on community and ecological wellbeing. Several policies regulate and provide guidance to icebreakers operating in ice-covered waters. With anticipated increases to icebreaking demand in …

Canadian And Russian Fisheries Management In The Arctic: Complexities, Commonalities And Contrasts, David Vanderzwaag, Vitalii Vorobev, Olga Koubrak

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article reviews and compares Canadian and Russian approaches to Arctic fisheries management through a three-part format. First, the complex array of laws and policies applicable to Arctic fisheries is described for each country. How Canada and Russia have addressed international fishery issues is also highlighted, including their participation in the 2018 Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement. Second, commonalities in fisheries governance approaches are summarized, including national commitments to implement precautionary and ecosystem approaches. Finally, contrasts in Arctic fisheries management are discussed. Major differences include the greater devolution of management responsibilities by Canada to Indigenous communities through land-claim agreements and …

Introduction: Responding To A Changing Arctic Ocean: Canadian And Russian Experiences And Challenges, Viatcheslav Gavrilov, David Vanderzwaag, Susan J. Rolston

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article is the guest editors' introduction to the special series entitled Responding to a Changing Arctic Ocean: Canadian and Russian Experiences and Challenges.

Outsourcing Enforcement, Desiree Leclercq

Scholarly Works

International organizations often outsource the enforcement of international law to their member states. The International Labor Organization (ILO), for instance, has neither its own adjudicative body nor an internal system of sanctions. Instead, the ILO’s maritime rules authorize states to impose costly retributive measures against noncompliant states. Conventional scholars are optimistic that these kinds of authorizations will strengthen otherwise toothless international law. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, states neither followed nor enforced the ILO’s rules, harming hundreds of thousands of seafarers in the process.

Where has international law gone wrong? Challenging the conventional view, this Article unearths the state-centric drawbacks …

The Negotiable Transport Document, Benjamin Geva

All Papers

With the emergence of a long-distance land-based trade, along with the expansion of a non-sea based multimodal trade, a demand arose for a negotiable transport document which is not limited to marine transport. A series of international conventions responded to such demand by providing for new types of negotiable transport documents. However, these conventions failed to accord to such documents the features of a document of title and to clarify their negotiable character. The task of overcoming this obstacle is hindered by the fragmentary nature of the law governing the marine bill of lading, which is the classic transport document …

A Deep Dive Into Private Governance Of Deep-Sea Mining, Andrew Johnson

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Modern, information-driven economies need rare-earth metals for everything from laptop computers to cellular phones. Society will require more of these metals for the solar panels, wind turbines, and storage batteries necessary to convert electricity systems to renewable energy. The deep sea contains large amounts of high-quality, rare-earth metals that companies and nations are increasingly interested in mining. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is authorized under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to permit and regulate deep-sea mining of the sea floor outside of national jurisdiction (the “Area”), and the ISA is currently developing regulations to …

Monitoring Sanctions Compliance At Sea, Richard L. Kilpatrick Jr.

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

No abstract provided.

The Legal Framework For Multimodal Transport In West Africa: The African Continental Free Trade Area In Perspective, Damilola Idris Osinuga

World Maritime University Ph.D. Dissertations

This thesis examines how multimodal transport can play a role in achieving the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The thesis argues that multimodal transport is cheaper compared with unimodal transportation. While there are a number of issues affecting the operationalisation of multimodal transport in Africa, this study considers, at its core, the legal regimes and other fragmented institutional and governance frameworks of multimodal transport in West Africa. The fragmentation of the legal framework governing multimodal transport leads to uncertainty and unforeseeability of the liability of parties involved in multimodal transport, consequently leading to increased legal costs. …

Artificial Waterways In International Water Law: An American Perspective, Tamar Meshel

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Freshwater is a fleeting natural resource that can never be fully harnessed or appropriated by humans. Nonetheless, under both domestic and international law, freshwater is a regulated resource and legal principles have developed to govern its allocation and use. But what of freshwater that, rather than flowing naturally, has been made to so flow by human intervention? Should artificial waterways be subject to the same legal principles that govern the ownership and use of waterways that are naturally occurring?

This Article takes a first step toward clarifying when and how international water law principles applicable to natural transboundary waterways should …

Submarine Cable Security And International Law, Douglas R. Burnett

International Law Studies

In this article the revolution in fiber optic submarine cable communications is placed in context with the world’s growing dependence upon critical submarine cable infrastructure. Emphasis is placed on the development of international law designed to protect submarine cables and in particular those articles in the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention that foster and safeguard the freedom to lay and repair submarine cables. Special focus is applied to the status of international submarine telecommunication cables in cases of intentional actions that damage or destroy them and the State practice and customary international law that generally classifies submarine cables …

Out Of Reach: The Mdlea’S Impermissible Extraterritorial Reach On Maritime Drug–Traffickers, Andres Chinchilla

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

46 U.S.C. § 70503, known as the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA), prohibits individuals on board covered vessels from manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with an intent to distribute or manufacture, a controlled substance. The statute, as enacted, permits the prosecution of individuals arrested beyond U.S. jurisdiction and even within the territorial seas of other States. This provision is argued to be an impermissible extraterritorial reach absent a nexus requirement—showing a connection between the drug smuggling activity and the U.S. Recently, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held the statute’s extraterritorial reach and lack of nexus requirement as unconstitutional under …