Rockapelago's Under International Law: From Definition to Implementation

This paper addresses the issue of “Rockapelago’s under International Law: From Definition to Implementation”. As the term ‘rockapelago’ is nowhere to be found in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 Convention, the first part of my presentation (Part I) will be devoted to explaining where the present author came across this term and what message it really wants to convey. As it will be clear that this term is a contraction of two legal notions, namely rocks and archipelagos, Part II will emphasize their importance under contemporary international law. Part III subsequently dwells on the nature of the primary legal source where these two legal notions are at present defined, namely the 1982 Convention, which has now achieved the status of Constitution for the Oceans. Part IV will then analyse the three paragraphs of Article 121 of the 1982 Convention, with special emphasis on its paragraph 3. Before drawing conclusions in Part VI, Part V will look at the way forward because this particular conventional provision may prove very difficult to implement by States Parties to the 1982 Convention based on account of its very specific drafting history.