Resilience of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: Reflections on Three Approaches

More than 40 years have passed since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Law
of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982. There are many issues that the drafters of UNCLOS may
not have been able to foresee in 1982. The question that arises here is whether and how
it is possible to address the new issues unknown under unclos. Here, resilience of
unclos is at issue. In this regard, one can identify three basic approaches to ensuring
resilience of unclos: (1) resilience through the interpretation, (2) resilience through
the law-making, and (3) resilience through the jurisprudence. The first approach seeks
to adapt unclos to new circumstances through the interpretation of the Convention
and the second approach aims to amplify the rules of unclos through the law-making
to address new issues. The third approach seeks to develop or elaborate the rules set
out in unclos through the jurisprudence. By examining the three approaches, this
article considers resilience of unclos in ever changing international relations.