ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an exploration of the suggestion that the Chinese U-shaped, nine-dashed or nine-dotted line drawn on the South China Sea map is not in fact a sovereignty claim or even a putative maritime boundary claim. A continuing issue in the evolving international law on offshore joint development of shared hydrocarbon resources relates to the scope of the actions that States can undertake when it becomes clear that a seabed area the State regards as within its continental shelf entitlement is part of an overlapping claims area. To begin with, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) reiterated the legal basis and inherent quality of coastal States sovereign rights within their continental shelves, as follows: A coastal States entitlement to the continental shelf exists by the sole fact that the basis of entitlement, namely, sovereignty over the land territory, is present.
