Progressive Development of International Law and the Package Deal

Abstract

For centuries the law of the sea operated efficiently on the basis of customs that had developed through uniform and consistent state practice and that were considered, in most instances, to be obligatory. It was not until the late 19th century that the evolution of the international community suggested the wisdom of codifying the existing and emerging customary norms. Although the early codification efforts were conducted by learned societies established for such purposes, the resulting studies eventually led to several multilateral treaty negotiations, including the Hague Codification Conference of 1930 and the three United Nations Conferences on the Law of the Sea. The fruits of this evolution from the predominance of custom towards universal treaty law are found principally in the Geneva Conventions of 1958 and, more recently, in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982.