states’ practice and institutional and academic interpretation of UNCLOS provisions. Such an evolution through interpretation may offer maneuver room for legal
operators to tackle the most pressing challenges to the Convention, without needing
to hope for improbable implementing agreements or unlikely formal amendments.
Hence, Chap. 6 has shown that the “environmental UNCLOS” represented a giant
leap towards the regulation of the marine environment, albeit in a fragmented and
incomplete way. The Convention was drafted at a time of profound prise de
conscience environmentale, in which the value of environmental conservation
gains the hearts and minds of populations across the globe, having codified two
dimensions of environmental concerns in a pioneer fashion: the conservation of
living resources, as well as the prevention, reduction and control of marine pollution.
Hence, the way in which the Convention codified the obligation to preserve and
protect the marine environment—by coupling it with the sovereign rights to conserve and manage living resources—allows for the drawing of a general, overriding
right-duty to manage the marine environment within national jurisdiction.
International law in general and the law of the sea in particular have played a
significant role in reaffirming mechanisms to protect nature, by turning the terrestrial
and marine environment into legal goods worthy of safeguarding. Nonetheless, even
though UNCLOS joined such ecological efforts and accommodated an entire Part on
the protection and preservation of the marine environment, the Convention did not
specify the environmental jurisdiction that coastal state have over its extended
continental shelf. In addition to that, Part XII contains mostly obligations which
fall upon states to protect the marine environment against pollution. Thus, it remains
unclear what the environmental rights of broad-margin states are, i.e. the limits of
national regulatory powers on environmental matters concerning the extended shelf.
For the purposes of this work, coastal states’ environmental jurisdiction over
continental shelf activities was extracted from different sources: international customary law; the joint reading of UNCLOS’ relevant provisions and the MEAs which
eventually apply to the marine realm, such as the CBD and CITES. In fact, assessing
such a jurisdiction is a job that demands a holistic reading of UNCLOS, its
implementing agreements and its preparatory works, but not only that. Marine
environmental matters extrapolate UNCLOS and peer into the domain of other
subsystems of public international law. Such diagonal regime interaction is in line
with a unifying approach to international law, one that prioritizes a coherent application of the discipline, instead of focusing on fragmentated parts and the tensions
permeating inter-regime relations.
Starting with UNCLOS, the rights and duties contained in Art. 77 are not
restricted to adopting laws, but extend to enforcing measures—not only with regard
to the exploration of the continental shelf and the exploitation of its resources, but to
the management of those resources, which also comprises conservation and protection schemes. The general environmental provision par excellence within UNCLOS
is the dual-edged right-duty to manage the marine environment under national
jurisdiction. Such a view, however, is not backed by a literal reading of the
Convention, according to which coastal states have, on the one hand, sovereign
360
11 Conclusions
operators to tackle the most pressing challenges to the Convention, without needing
to hope for improbable implementing agreements or unlikely formal amendments.
Hence, Chap. 6 has shown that the “environmental UNCLOS” represented a giant
leap towards the regulation of the marine environment, albeit in a fragmented and
incomplete way. The Convention was drafted at a time of profound prise de
conscience environmentale, in which the value of environmental conservation
gains the hearts and minds of populations across the globe, having codified two
dimensions of environmental concerns in a pioneer fashion: the conservation of
living resources, as well as the prevention, reduction and control of marine pollution.
Hence, the way in which the Convention codified the obligation to preserve and
protect the marine environment—by coupling it with the sovereign rights to conserve and manage living resources—allows for the drawing of a general, overriding
right-duty to manage the marine environment within national jurisdiction.
International law in general and the law of the sea in particular have played a
significant role in reaffirming mechanisms to protect nature, by turning the terrestrial
and marine environment into legal goods worthy of safeguarding. Nonetheless, even
though UNCLOS joined such ecological efforts and accommodated an entire Part on
the protection and preservation of the marine environment, the Convention did not
specify the environmental jurisdiction that coastal state have over its extended
continental shelf. In addition to that, Part XII contains mostly obligations which
fall upon states to protect the marine environment against pollution. Thus, it remains
unclear what the environmental rights of broad-margin states are, i.e. the limits of
national regulatory powers on environmental matters concerning the extended shelf.
For the purposes of this work, coastal states’ environmental jurisdiction over
continental shelf activities was extracted from different sources: international customary law; the joint reading of UNCLOS’ relevant provisions and the MEAs which
eventually apply to the marine realm, such as the CBD and CITES. In fact, assessing
such a jurisdiction is a job that demands a holistic reading of UNCLOS, its
implementing agreements and its preparatory works, but not only that. Marine
environmental matters extrapolate UNCLOS and peer into the domain of other
subsystems of public international law. Such diagonal regime interaction is in line
with a unifying approach to international law, one that prioritizes a coherent application of the discipline, instead of focusing on fragmentated parts and the tensions
permeating inter-regime relations.
Starting with UNCLOS, the rights and duties contained in Art. 77 are not
restricted to adopting laws, but extend to enforcing measures—not only with regard
to the exploration of the continental shelf and the exploitation of its resources, but to
the management of those resources, which also comprises conservation and protection schemes. The general environmental provision par excellence within UNCLOS
is the dual-edged right-duty to manage the marine environment under national
jurisdiction. Such a view, however, is not backed by a literal reading of the
Convention, according to which coastal states have, on the one hand, sovereign
360
11 Conclusions