ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented shock to the globalised and interdependent world economy. International maritime transport was particularly severely disrupted, leading to an extraordinary number of restrictions on access to key ports, or even to the complete closure of ports. Numerous legal instruments, foremost among them the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), recognise the right of port states to deny entry to a port in accordance with the principle that a state has complete jurisdiction over a territory. Consequently, with regard to the pandemic, it has been argued that the restrictions imposed by such a large number of individual port states reconfirm the absence of any general right of access to a port. At the same time, the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic should also lead to in-depth reflection on whether such broad discretion of port states to decide on access to a port is within the international standards established by UNCLOS. This article undertakes a legal and economic analysis of restrictions on the right of access to a port to contribute to a broader debate on the functionality of UNCLOS in the light of a wide range of new legal and socio-economic challenges.
