Introductory Remarks by Catherine Redgwell

Abstract

Although negotiated as a “package deal,” ostensibly comprehensive in scope and universal in its participation, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was always intended to be capable of further evolution and development. Inevitably strategic interests change over time, and “economic and technological developments have increased the ability to access and harvest the [living and nonliving] resources of the sea and the seabed.” At the same time our knowledge of the oceans, the earth's largest ecosystem (~1.3 billion km3), has continued to evolve, despite large gaps that remain in our understanding.