Introduction

The impetus for the publication of this book was the 40th anniversary of the concluding of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter referred to as “UNCLOS”). The Convention was the outcome of the work of the Third Conference on the Law of the Sea, meeting under the auspices of the United Nations and convened pursuant to UN General Assembly Resolution 3067 adopted on 16 November 1973. ¹ The conference met in annual sessions, lasting from a few weeks to around two months and generally held at UN headquarters in New York or the organisation’s office in Geneva. There were two exceptions: the Second Session, held from 20 June to 29 August 1974 in Caracas, Venezuela, and the concluding session of the XI Conference, the solemn presentation of the Convention – together with the Final Act of the Conference – for signature, which took place in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982. There are 157 signatories of the Convention, and currently 169 entities recognised by international law are party to it. In addition to states, the European Union is also a party to the Convention. The Convention entered into force on 16 November 1994. Poland has been a party to it since 13 November 1998. ² The provisions of UNCLOS are now legally binding for more than 80% of UN member states. Interestingly, this proportion is also maintained among the countries that are permanent members of the UN Security Council, of which only the US is not bound by the Convention’s provisions. ³ However, it should be added that the US is a party to the four 1958 Geneva Conventions on the Law of the Sea, some of whose provisions are almost verbatim reiterated in UNCLOS. This fact, in turn, has led to the conclusion in the jurisprudence of international courts that some of the provisions of UNCLOS, as in the case of its Article 10 governing the status of bays, reflect universally applicable rules of customary law. ⁴