1 Introduction
We are living in a limited world. We know that for a quite long time now. In fact, in
his literary work “Regards sur le monde actuel”, Paul Valéry outlines a scenario for
the beginning of the finite world.
1 This scenario illustrates the stage of humanity’s
growth in which all habitable land has already been discovered and shared among
nations. The search for resources, in terms of possession, is no longer possible in the
land side. The ultimate option to be considered on Earth is this enormous global
common—the Ocean.
The race for the Ocean’s non-living resources, especially those located in the soil
and subsoil of the continental shelf, had a considerable push in the mid-1940s of the
last Century. Two major milestones can be highlighted; the first regards to the Treaty
of Paria, between the United Kingdom and Venezuela, which can be considered as
the first treaty on the continental shelf
2 and beyond the limits of the Territorial Sea.
The second milestone, which can be considered as the most disruptive one in the
1940s, was the Truman Proclamation of 1945.
3 This proclamation sets the main
foundations of the present concept of the legal continental shelf. Although the initial
concept of continental shelf, as portrayed by Truman, was very close to its scientific
meaning, the present definition, as defined by Article 76 of UNCLOS, departs from
this physical reality. This breakpoint needs to be considered in order to fully
understand the applied terminology when considering the elements of the geophysical margin that allow us to set the limits of the legal continental shelf.
2 Defining the Continental Shelf
The origin of the term Continental Shelf is exclusively based on its geomorphologic
concept. According to Mouton, it was back to 1887 when the British geographer
Robert Mill first coined this term.
4 In its geological sense, the continental shelf is the
seaward area adjacent to the coastline, characterized with a gentle gradient (around
1
) that extends to the shelf break where a significant change in gradient occurs. The
average depth where the shelf break occurs is around 200 m, which is close to the
100 fathoms proposed by Truman, in his 1945 Proclamation, as outer limit of the
continental shelf.
1 Valéry (1931), p. 7.
2 Suarez (2008), p. 25.
3 U.S. Proclamation No. 2667, “Policies of the United States with Respect to the Natural Resources
of the Subsoil and Sea Bed of the Continental Shelf, 28 September 1945, 10 Fed. Reg. 12303,
reprinted in full in: Lay et al. (1973), pp. 106–107.
4 “(. . .) the need to give a special name to the framelike rim or margin of the continents with their
long, sometimes narrow, sometimes wide but hardly ever completely failing shallow-water banks
(. . .). Mouton (1952), p. 6.
192
A. S. de Campos
We are living in a limited world. We know that for a quite long time now. In fact, in
his literary work “Regards sur le monde actuel”, Paul Valéry outlines a scenario for
the beginning of the finite world.
1 This scenario illustrates the stage of humanity’s
growth in which all habitable land has already been discovered and shared among
nations. The search for resources, in terms of possession, is no longer possible in the
land side. The ultimate option to be considered on Earth is this enormous global
common—the Ocean.
The race for the Ocean’s non-living resources, especially those located in the soil
and subsoil of the continental shelf, had a considerable push in the mid-1940s of the
last Century. Two major milestones can be highlighted; the first regards to the Treaty
of Paria, between the United Kingdom and Venezuela, which can be considered as
the first treaty on the continental shelf
2 and beyond the limits of the Territorial Sea.
The second milestone, which can be considered as the most disruptive one in the
1940s, was the Truman Proclamation of 1945.
3 This proclamation sets the main
foundations of the present concept of the legal continental shelf. Although the initial
concept of continental shelf, as portrayed by Truman, was very close to its scientific
meaning, the present definition, as defined by Article 76 of UNCLOS, departs from
this physical reality. This breakpoint needs to be considered in order to fully
understand the applied terminology when considering the elements of the geophysical margin that allow us to set the limits of the legal continental shelf.
2 Defining the Continental Shelf
The origin of the term Continental Shelf is exclusively based on its geomorphologic
concept. According to Mouton, it was back to 1887 when the British geographer
Robert Mill first coined this term.
4 In its geological sense, the continental shelf is the
seaward area adjacent to the coastline, characterized with a gentle gradient (around
1
) that extends to the shelf break where a significant change in gradient occurs. The
average depth where the shelf break occurs is around 200 m, which is close to the
100 fathoms proposed by Truman, in his 1945 Proclamation, as outer limit of the
continental shelf.
1 Valéry (1931), p. 7.
2 Suarez (2008), p. 25.
3 U.S. Proclamation No. 2667, “Policies of the United States with Respect to the Natural Resources
of the Subsoil and Sea Bed of the Continental Shelf, 28 September 1945, 10 Fed. Reg. 12303,
reprinted in full in: Lay et al. (1973), pp. 106–107.
4 “(. . .) the need to give a special name to the framelike rim or margin of the continents with their
long, sometimes narrow, sometimes wide but hardly ever completely failing shallow-water banks
(. . .). Mouton (1952), p. 6.
192
A. S. de Campos