The Regulation of Continental Shelf Development: Rethinking International Standards

The lack of international conventional law governing the operational aspects of continental shelf activity may be characterized as unfinished business of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Convention, adopted in 1982, generally addressed the issue but did not consider more detailed development of the legal regime for the continental shelf. In The Regulation of Continental Shelf Development: Rethinking International Standards, leading experts from around the world identify and explore a multitude of unresolved legal concerns related to the continental shelf.

The current state of continental shelf activities is explored through the following lenses:

• Contemporary uses, including an overview on offshore wind energy in the EU, an analysis of the use of submarine cables under UNCLOS, and a discussion of the varied potential for mining marine materials;
• Emerging challenges, such as ISA seabed mining standards, the recent ITLOS decision regarding the Bay of Bengal, and the role of the IMO in establishing safety standards for transboundary effects of oil pollution for offshore platforms;
• Comparative best practices in environmental regulation;
• Probabilistic risk assessment, with a thorough definition of PRA and a critical examination of continental shelf disasters;
• Decommissioning offshore installations and structures, including an overview of the global regime as particularly provided in Articles 60(3) and 80 of UNCLOS;
• Liability and compensation; and finally,
• Unfinished business on UNCLOS III.

The varied voices of experts collected within The Regulation of Continental Shelf Development: Rethinking International Standards offer a timely understanding of past, present, and future issues related to the continental shelf. The volume is a must-read for all those interested in environmental law and the law of the sea.