Greece was one of the initial 119 delegations to sign the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea at the final meeting of the Conference for that purpose in December of 1982. When the Convention came into force in November 1994, only two countries opposed it. Turkey was one of them. Turkey has no plans to ratify the Convention in the near future. Greece & the Law of the Sea reviews the main developments in the Greek-Turkish dispute relating to the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea & analyzes all other aspects of the Greek maritime interests in the light of the Convention. The contributors have closely followed the creation of the new international law of the sea & discuss in their papers how this affects a great maritime nation, such as Greece, in a variety of ways. The work is published under the auspices of the recently established Aegean Institute of the Law of the Sea & Maritime Law, an independent scientific research center affiliated with the University of the Aegean, located in Rhodes. It constitutes one of the few books to cover Greek affairs in the English language. As such, it will greatly assist non-Greek speaking scholars interested in following & studying Greek affairs.

The Greek Code Of Private Maritime Law

The book contains contributions of scholars from Canada, Greece, Israel, Italy, and the United States. Section 1 consists of studies on historical and security issues, with contributions on the historical background of Greco-Turkish relations, British perspectives on these relations after World War II, the role of NATO, Greece's defence strategy and the balance of power between Greece and Turkey. Section 2 addresses law-of-the-sea and governance issues, and includes studies on Greece and the law of the sea, maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean, the Imia Rocks crisis, human security and governance, fisheries management, water resources management, joint development zones, and dispute settlement in the law of the sea.

This key work analyses the disputes between Greece and Turkey as to their respective rights in the Aegean Sea, paying particular attention to the claims regarding territorial waters, the continental shelf, and the yet to be declared exclusive maritime zones in the area. While many earlier studies have concentrated on political factors, this study provides an exhaustive analysis of the relevant principles of international law in general and rules and principles of maritime law in particular, identifying the legal principles appropriate to the settlement of the Aegean dispute. With this regard, it makes a detailed examination of all the related aspects of the Aegean Sea and its islands, as well as the legal arguments of Greece and Turkey on the disputes concerned. It also clarifies the prospects for settling the dispute on the basis of international law, either by the two parties involved, or by the intervention of a third party such as the International Court of Justice. As such, it offers an important study of a particular problem, but one that can be used as a case study for other international disagreements.

The Aegean disputes between Turkey and Greece represent one of the longest-standing contemporary conflicts in existence.These disagreements encompass a wide range of issues, including the seabed, maritime areas and airspace of the Aegean. The territorial status of a number of islands and rocks, as well as specific demilitarization conferred upon Greek islands in the Eastern Aegean under international treaties, is also a matter of dispute. The Aegean disputes, which still remain unresolved, are a major source of tension and conflict in Turkish-Greek relations. The stalemate in reaching a settlement is liable to give rise to new frictions resulting in an acute strain on relations. From time to time the disputes have erupted into crisis bringing the two countries to the verge of confrontation. These disputes are immensely complex and involve a broad range of interrelated issues with complicated political and legal aspects. This study represents the first attempt of its kind, providing in a single volume a comprehensive review and analysis of the legal and political aspects of the Aegean disputes which constitute a unique case study in international law, involving two neighbours in the Aegean that share a unique history and geography.

The Law of the Sea (LOS) treaty resulted from some of the most complicated multilateral negotiations ever conducted. Difficult bargaining produced a remarkably sophisticated agreement on the financial aspects of deep ocean mining and on the financing of a new international mining entity. This book analyzes those negotiations along with the abrupt U.S. rejection of their results. Building from this episode, it derives important and subtle general rules and propositions for reaching superior, sustainable agreements in complex bargaining situations. James Sebenius shows how agreements were possible among the parties because and not in spite of differences in their values, expectations, and attitudes toward time and risk. He shows how linking separately intractable issues can generate a zone of possible agreement. He analyzes the extensive role of a computer model in the LOS talks. Finally, he argues that in many negotiations neither the issues nor the parties are fixed and develops analytic techniques that predict how the addition or deletion of either issues or parties may affect the process of reaching agreement.