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

Abstract

ITLOS is an autonomous specialized international judicial organ created by the 1982 UN 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. They are expected to be specialists in the law of the sea according to a method that intends to assure an equitable geographical representation. ITLOS has both contentious and advisory jurisdiction. In the first case, it has a wide voluntary jurisdiction to deal with disputes submitted to it by the agreement of the parties. Nevertheless, it also has a remarkable compulsory jurisdiction for some specific kinds of disputes, such as those concerning the area (submitted to its Seabed Disputes Chamber), those relating to the prompt release of detained vessels and crews according to the special procedure regulated by Article 292 of UNCLOS, and, in general, those disputes concerning the interpretation or application...