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Mr. Bing Bing Jia

Mr. Bing Bing Jia
Professor of International Law
Tsinghua Law School
Beijing, China

Biography Biography in PDF
Law of the Sea
International Straits
The Regime of International Straits: Current State of the Law

This talk is concerned with the current state of the law on international straits. It takes a renewed look at certain fundamental questions in the light of an array of accumulated instances of practice since 1998. The slowness of the regime of transit passage as established under UNCLOS in passing into the body of customary law is a marked feature of the post-1998 practice. The reason for this lies in the differences growing between the text of UNCLOS and State practice in relation to several main provisions of Part III of the treaty.

Video | Audio
(30/3/2015, 52 minutes)
Law of the Sea
International Straits
The Regime of International Straits: Current State of the Law
A. Legal Instruments

Convention Respecting the Non-Fortification and Neutralization of the Aaland Islands, Geneva, 20 October 1921, League of Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 9, p. 211

Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, Geneva, 29 April 1958, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 516, p. 205.

International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, London, 1 November 1974, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1184, p. 277.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Montego Bay, 10 December 1982, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1833, p.3.

Spanish Royal Decree 394/2007 on Measures Applicable to Ships in Transit which Unload Marine Pollutants in Spanish Marine Waters, Boletín Oficial del Estado, 4 April 2007, 81.

B. Jurisprudence

International Court of Justice, Corfu Channel case (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland v. Albania), Merits, Judgment, I.C.J . Reports 1949, p. 4.

C. Doctrine

R. C. Beckman, “PSSAs and Transit Passage: Australia’s Pilotage System in the Torres Strait Challenges the IMO and UNCLOS”, Ocean Development and International Law, vol. 38, 2007, pp. 325-357.

R. Douglas Brubaker, The Russian Arctic Straits (Martinus Nijhoff, 2005).

H. Caminos and V. Cogliati-Bantz, The legal regime of straits: contemporary challenges and solutions (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

R. R. Churchill and A. V. Lowe, The Law of the Sea (Manchester University Press, 3rd edn., 1999).

B. Jia, The Regime of Straits in International Law (Oxford University Press, 1998).

A. G. López Martín, International Straits: Concept, Classification and Rules of Passage (Springer, 2010).

John N. Moore, “The Regime of Straits and the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea”, American Journal of International Law, vol. 74,1980, pp. 77-121.

S. N. Nandan and D. H. Anderson, “Straits Used for International Navigation: A Commentary on Part III of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”, British Yearbook of International Law, vol. 60, 1989, pp. 159-204.

M. H. Nordquist, S.N. Nandan and S.Rosenne (eds.), United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982: A Commentary, vol. II (Martinus Nijhoff, 1993).

N. Oral, “Straits Used in International Navigation, User Fees and Article 43 of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention”, Ocean Yearbook vol.20, 2006, pp. 561-594.

D. Pharand, “The Arctic Waters and the Northwest Passage: A Final Revisit”, Ocean Development and International Law, vol. 38, 2007, pp. 3-69.

M. C. Stelakatos-Loverdos, “The Contribution of Channels to the Definition of Straits Used for International Navigation”, International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, vol.13, 1998, pp. 71-89;

J. M. Van Dyck, “The Aegean Disputes in International Law”, Ocean Development and International Law, vol. 36, 2005, pp. 63-117.