El arbitraje internacional y el Derecho del Mar

Abstract

The international arbitration is a jurisdictional mean for the settlement of disputes which is rooted in Ancient Greece, although it is generally considered that the first modern arbitration took place in 1794. From the nineteenth century to nowadays around eighty arbitrations have taken place dealing with disputes related to the Law of the Sea. With the title The international arbitration and the Law of the Sea, this doctoral thesis considers in its first part the provisions of arbitration within the international treaties and drafts (among them the conventions resulting from the Hague Peace Conferences stand out), the defining features of this mean of settlement of disputes and their receipt in the successive arbitrations in Law of the Sea. In its second part, this research analyses the jurisdictional and procedural aspects of the arbitrations in Law of the Sea. In this sense, the third chapter deals with the jurisdictional titles of these arbitrations, particularly with the special agreements and arbitration clauses and, within the latest, with the clause established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Moreover, taking into account the ad hoc nature of arbitration, chapter four sets forth the common elements of the rules of procedure of the historical and recent arbitrations in Law of the Sea, related both to the preparation and development of the arbitral process and also to the arbitral award. Finally, the third part considers the most relevant contributions of arbitration to the development of the Law of the Sea, contributions that, above all, have taken place in two essential fields of this area of the international legal system. On the one hand, the fifth chapter studies the contributions of arbitration to the legal regime of marine areas. On the other hand, the sixth and last chapter examines the arbitrations’ contributions to the maritime delimitation law and, in particular, to the development of the three-stage delimitation process. In this process as well as throughout this doctoral thesis, the interaction, the coherence, the reciprocal relations and the jurisdictional dialogue between the international arbitration, the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea are considered.