3. International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS)

Abstract

ITLOS is an autonomous, specialized, international judicial organ established pursuant the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is composed of twenty-one independent judges elected by the Meeting of States Parties to the convention, among specialists in the law of the sea, according to a method that intends to assure an equitable geographical representation. The composition of ITLOS is renewed by thirds every three years, and elections were held in 2017 for designating seven judges (Bouguetaia and Jesus, re-elected, and Cabello, Chadha, Kittichaisaree, Kolodkin, and Lijnzaad, elected for the first time). In addition, ITLOS elected its new president (Paik) and vice-president (Attard) and reconstituted its Chambers in the same year. On the other hand, a former judge, Vicente Marotta-Rangel, who had been part of the original composition of ITLOS in 1996 and served in this Tribunal until 2015, passed away on 17 July 2017. ITLOS has both contentious and advisory jurisdiction. As to the contentious jurisdiction, ITLOS has broad competence to deal with disputes submitted to it by the agreement of the parties (on voluntary basis). It also has compulsory jurisdiction for some specific types of disputes, such as those concerning the Seabed Area (assigned to its Seabed Disputes Chamber), those relating to the prompt release of arrested vessels and their crews according to the special procedure regulated by Article 292 of UNCLOS, and, in general, those disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the convention (neither listed in the automatic exceptions of Article 297 nor opted out by the parties through a declaration made pursuant to Article 298), in respect to which the confronting parties have made a declaration electing ITLOS in conformity with its Article 287. Other significant international treaties, such as the 1995 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Relating the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, also give some room for the compulsory jurisdiction of ITLOS. Regarding its advisory jurisdiction, it was expressly conferred by the Tribunal’s Statute (Annex VI of the convention) only to its Seabed Disputes Chamber and only for questions concerning the Seabed Area. However, by means of its Rules, ITLOS included an express mention to its general advisory jurisdiction, thereby constrained not only to seabed matters, to be exercised under certain conditions. According to its advisory opinion of 2 April 2015, in the Request for an advisory opinion submitted by the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC) (Case no. 21), the basis of this general advisory jurisdiction is Article 21 of its Statute.