The Regulation of Continental Shelf Development

The lack of international conventional law governing the operational aspects of continental shelf activity may be characterized as unfinished business of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Convention, adopted in 1982, generally addressed the issue but did not consider more detailed development of the legal regime for the continental shelf. In The Regulation of Continental Shelf Development: Rethinking International Standards, leading experts from around the world identify and explore a multitude of unresolved legal concerns related to the continental shelf.

The current state of continental shelf activities is explored through the following lenses:
• Contemporary uses, including an overview on offshore wind energy in the EU, an analysis of the use of submarine cables under UNCLOS, and a discussion of the varied potential for mining marine materials;
• Emerging challenges, such as ISA seabed mining standards, the recent ITLOS decision regarding the Bay of Bengal, and the role of the IMO in establishing safety standards for transboundary effects of oil pollution for offshore platforms;
• Comparative best practices in environmental regulation;
• Probabilistic risk assessment, with a thorough definition of PRA and a critical examination of continental shelf disasters;
• Decommissioning offshore installations and structures, including an overview of the global regime as particularly provided in Articles 60(3) and 80 of UNCLOS;
• Liability and compensation; and finally,
• Unfinished business on UNCLOS III.

The varied voices of experts collected within The Regulation of Continental Shelf Development: Rethinking International Standards offer a timely understanding of past, present, and future issues related to the continental shelf. The volume is a must-read for all those interested in environmental law and the law of the sea.

Myron H. Nordquist is the Associate Director and Editor of the Center for Oceans Law and Policy, and Senior Fellow at the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is Editor-in-Chief of the seven-volume Virginia commentary series,plus a Supplementary Documents volume, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982: a Commentary.
John Norton Moore is the Walter L. Brown Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, Director of the Center for Oceans Law and Policy, and Director of the Center for National Security Law. He is the author or editor of thirty-eight books and over 170 scholarly articles and served for two decades on the editorial board of the American Journal of International Law, where he is currently an Honorary Editor.
Aldo Chircop is a specialist in maritime law, marine and environmental law and policy, and integrated coastal and ocean management. His work experience has included directorships of the Marine Affairs Programme and Marine Environmental Law Program at Dalhousie, the International Ocean Institute and the Mediterranean Institute in Malta, and a brief term with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Vienna, Austria.
Ronán Long holds the Jean Monnet Chair of European Law at the School of Law at NUI Galway and lectures EU Law, International Law, Planning and Environmental Law, Law of the Sea and European Fisheries Law. He has also lectured at the Rhodes Academy Oceans Law and Policy and is a supervisor of advanced academic research under the United Nations - The Nippon Foundation of Japan Fellowship Programme.