Implications of Sea-Level Rise for the Law of the Sea

Increasing global temperature due to climate change is causing the sea level to rise, which will have an increasingly greater effect on coastlines and baselines of maritime states, creating the potential for economic and political uncertainty. International law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [hereinafter: LOSC] do not offer a solution to the effects of sea-level rise, except in Article 7(2), which fixes straight baselines in highly unstable coastlines in a delta or similar area, and Article 76(9), which permanently fixes the outer limits of continental shelf. Most scholars have proposed a freeze of the existing baselines or outer limits of maritime spaces and have urged the international community to adopt a rule on this issue. We would argue an exception to the above solution in the case of islands and rocks. Although most scholars argue that an island or a rock must retain its continental shelf in case of submersion, such interpretation does not seem to be consistent with the purpose of Article 121(3) of the LOSC, which was adopted to deny tiny rocks from having an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf. Such entitlements from disappeared islands do not comply with the principle of “the land dominates the sea,” and therefore should be exempted from the freeze.