The expression “living resources” occurs thirty-eight times in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), but the latter does not give any legal definition of the term. The integration of environmental law taxonomy, such as biodiversity, in the evolution of the law of the sea has added to confusion regarding the meaning of “marine living resources.” To clarify the meaning of this expression and its legal scope in the evolution of the law of the sea, it is necessary to analyze the context of its use in UNCLOS and, more broadly, in the legal regime governing marine resources. This article aims to clarify the origins and extent of the confusion regarding the meaning of marine living resources and to analyze how the use of a broader semantic field in different legal instruments and other sources of international law has shaped the legal framework for the conservation and sustainable use of marine living resources.

The establishment of a compulsory dispute settlement mechanism in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is intended to be the guarantor of the proper application of the convention. Yet the decisions of courts and tribunals seized pursuant to the procedures under Section 2 of Part XV of UNCLOS are in many regards difficult to reconcile and in some regards unable to form the basis for a jurisprudence constante. This article examines on an empirical basis the scope and limits of the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism under UNCLOS, as applied by international courts and tribunals during a period of twenty years since the first decision in the Southern Bluefin Tuna case until the recent decision on preliminary objections in the Dispute Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

En mai 2019, le Canada a présenté sa soumission concernant son plateau continental étendu arctique à la Commission des limites du plateau continental. La délinéation des plateaux continentaux étendus, conformément à la Convention des Nations Unies sur le droit de la mer, résulte d’interprétations dans lesquelles s’entrelacent arguments scientifiques et juridiques à l’égard d’une situation géophysique singulière. Cet article examine la manière dont le Canada a composé avec la triple interprétation juridique, scientifique et factuelle à travers une étude articulée autour de la notion de “prolongement naturel.” Sont mis en relief les défis interprétatifs, mais aussi les opportunités que le Canada a saisies en participant au dégagement de consensus scientifiques et juridiques au soutien de la délinéation qu’il propose.

This article takes stock of the contribution of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) to the development of international environmental law. It examines in this regard the jurisdiction of the tribunal and provides an overview of its environmental jurisprudence. It then assesses the potential role of ITLOS in relation to some marine environmental challenges ahead. In particular, it considers the possibility of a request for an advisory opinion on climate change, the settlement of disputes regarding deep seabed mining, and the potential role of the tribunal under a new legal instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.