The Admissibility of a Plea to an International Adjudicative Forum to Delimit the Outer Continental Shelf Prior to the Adoption of Final Recommendations by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf

Abstract

It is not the role of an international adjudicative body in the exercise of its contentious jurisdiction, to advise parties as to what their rights would be under a hypothetical state of facts. Having in mind the importance international law attaches to the judicial principle res iudicata , the question examined in this article is whether an international adjudicative body should accept the application to delimit the outer continental shelf, to which there are overlapping claims, prior to the completion of the work of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Notwithstanding the unilateral character of the delineation of the outer limits of the continental shelf and its conceptual detachment from delimitation, these two operations are intertwined. Thus, it could affect the holistic application of the Law of the Sea Convention, should international adjudicative bodies accept to delimit the outer continental shelf in the absence of any recommendations by the Commission.