Book review: The International Law of the Sea

• Author: Patrick H Vrancken
• Position: LLD (UCT), Incumbent of the South African Research Chair in the Law of the Sea and Development in Africa hosted by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
• Pages: 45-46

(2017) 31 ANZ Mar LJ

45

BOOK REVIEW

Donald R Rothwell and Tim Stephens, The International Law of the Sea (Hart

Publishing, 2nd ed, 2016) ISBN: 978-1-78225-684-7

Patrick HG Vrancken*

As one of the reviewers of the first edition anticipated, The International Law of the Sea of Donald R Rothwell

and Tim Stephens has had such a commercial success that a second edition is now available. There is little point

in emba rking on a systematic comparison between the two editions. Suffice it to say that the structure of the

second edition is the same as that of the first edition. T his means that, in the eyes of this reviewer, this second

edition suffers from the same structural disadvantages as its predecessor in a market where it is not without serious

competition.

Works of this nature follow the same basic approach as the one followed by the drafters of the 1982 UN

Convention on the Law of the Sea (‘the LOSC’). Whether there is another approach and, if so, whether the

conventional approach is the best one are issues which have received little attention. This is however not the place

to engage with them. What is clear is that the conv entional approach has an inheren t logic which makes it

pedagogically effective: one begins with a discussion of the legal regime of the various maritime zones (starting

from the shore and moving progressively furthe r and further away), after which follows a discussion of the legal

regime of various maritime activities before one concludes with the legal regime governing the settlement of

disputes.

While the book under review does by and large follow that approach, it departs from it at times and does so in

many cases in unconvincing ways. For instance, the fact that archipelagic States are a special category of coastal

States (which appears to explain why they are discussed in chapter 8, after the high seas and before the landlocked

and geographically disadvantaged States) does not, in this reviewer’s opinion, outweigh the fact that the

archipelagic waters are landward of all the other maritime zones except the internal waters, wherever the latter

exist. A second example, already pointed out by reviews of the first edition, is the fact that the discussion of

specific regimes, most if not all the elements of which it makes pedagogic sense to handle together, are to some

extent scattered in different chapters of the book. That is the case, for instance, of the legal regime of archipelagic

waters, which is not only discussed in chapter 8 but also in the fourth section of chapter 11. A third example

relates to the title of some chapters and sections. One of the somewhat problematical ones is that of chapter 2:

‘coastal waters’. There are two reasons. The first reason is that the chapter deals with the baselines, which are

precisely lines, not waters. The second reason is that, because the chapter discusses only the legal regime of

internal waters, it implies that archipelagic waters and territorial waters are not ‘coastal waters’, something

undoubtedly at odds with integrated coastal management principles. Based on the reviewer’s experience,

structural issues such as the ones pointed out above must not be underestimated. Th e international law of the sea

is a complex field of study and the structure of any work such as the one under review has a significant influence

on the ability of many readers to engage constructively with the material.

Looking beyond structure into substance, this reviewer endorses the positive comments made by the reviewers of

the book’s first edition. The work demonstrates outstanding erudition and attention to detail. As a result, it contains

a wealth of information which, without any doubt, makes the book a very handy reference tool. Perhaps its greatest

comparative strength in that regard is the last chapter, which is devoted to ocean governance and in which the

authors have produced a useful, but arguably still too law-bound introduction to the wider normative environment

within which conflicts between competing human activities and interests in the oceans are resolved. Another

strength of the wo rk is that the discussion of the law as it stands at present is systematically built on a (perhaps

too) detailed exposition of its historical background . Nevertheless, in that feature lies at the same time one of the

frustrating aspects of the book in the sen se that the authors appear to have been in some instances too readily

content to rehash well-worn clichés. For instance, it can be argued that, on page 2, the authors overstate th e

influence of Spain and understate the influence of Portugal in the events a nd knowledge on which the Bull of

Pope Alexander VI and the Treaty of Tordesillas were based. Another example is the lack of mention, on page 3,

of the undeniable fact that Hugo de Groot borrowed heavily from the leading Spanish international law scholars

of the 16th century.

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* LLD (UCT), Incumbent of the South African Research Chair in the Law of the Sea and Development in Africa hosted by the Nelson

Mandela Metropolitan University.