A participant who has successfully completed this course should:

• have a clear understanding and appreciation of the international legal framework created by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea;
• have a clear understanding of the evolution, and current status of the various jurisdictional zones and regimes that currently govern the utilisation of the world's oceans, and of the underlying policy considerations that led to the adoption of the compromises reflected in the contemporary Law of the Sea; and
• be capable of applying the relevant legal norms to practical situations.

The course will focus on the impact of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and more recent supplementary agreements in the light of current State practice, seeking to identify, in particular, the extent to which its provisions have become part of customary international law in that area.

Addressed will be the history of Law of the Sea concepts; baselines and internal waters, territorial waters and the regime of innocent passage; the contiguous zone; transit passage through straits used for international navigation; islands, archipelagoes and the regime of archipelagic sealanes passage; the Exclusive Economic Zone; the Continental Shelf; recent developments in delimitation of maritime zones; the high seas and the management of High Seas fisheries; deep-seabed mining and the International Area, marine environmental protection and management, maritime regulation and enforcement, and dispute resolution in the law of the sea.