A Search for Landlocked States’ Right of Access to and From the Seas: The Influence of International Commercial Law

Abstract

For decades, most landlocked States have been faced with a deluge of hitches resulting from their inability to secure access to seaports. These problems have greatly hindered the economic development of these nations. To ease their sufferings, States without access to the seas have sought successive legal innovations to assert and enforce their right of access based on the international law principle of servitude. This study traces the evolution of international law innovations relating to free access to and from the seas for landlocked States. A comparative and evolutionary stroll from the Statute of Barcelona 1921 to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, found that indeed, landlocked States are vested with the rights of access to the seas using the transit routes of their neighboring transit States. Regrettably, these rights seem to be more theoretical than practical as they are subject to the political whims and caprices of transit States. The enjoyment of these rights by landlocked States is contingent upon a successful negotiation between the concerned landlocked State and its transit State. The study further analyses the cogency of negotiating bilateral and/or multilateral agreements dealing with the question of transit for landlocked States. The study concludes that reciprocal negotiations with transit States have a crucial and irreplaceable role to play in giving practical effect to those rights.