Author	Slouka, Zdenek J. author
Title	International Custom and the Continental Shelf [electronic resource] : A Study in the Dynamics of Customary Rules of International Law / by Zdenek J. Slouka
Imprint	Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands, 1968
Connect to	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9210-1
Descript	186 p. 3 illus. online resource

One of the reasons for the speed with which international law has been changing in recent years has been the acceleration in the development of technology. New technological capabilities create opportunities for new kinds of economic activities which in turn require new legal norms to regulate them. Many such norms are formulated by express agreement and embodied in multilateral treaties. Much of contemporary air and space law is being developed by this method. For various reasons, however, the treatyยญ making process is not always adequate for the development of new law, at least in its initial stages. Express agreement of a substantial majority of states on norms formulated with some precision requires much time and effort. Eighteen years have passed, for example, since the United Nations International Law Commission began its work on the law of the sea which led to the formulation of four conventions at the Geneva Conference of 1958 on this subject. Ten years after this Conference, none of the four conventions has been ratified or acceded to by a majority of the states of the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that in some fie1ds new law first emerges as a set of customary norms of varying degrees of c1arity and general accepยญ tance. But the nature of the process of development and change of customary norms has remained inadequately understood and explained in the theory of intemationallaw. Some eminent jurists have called it "a mystery

I: International Custom: its Statics and Dynamics -- Some Traditional Criteria of the Growth of International Custom -- The Law of the Continental Shelf in Theory -- II: The Continental Shelf, its Utilization and Control -- The Continental Shelf and its Riches -- National Shelf Policies -- Industrial Involvement on the Shelf -- The Shelf and the State -- Political and Industrial Limits of the Shelf -- III: Political and Legal Problems of the Continental Shelf: an Outline -- Political and Legal Aspects of the Doctrine: 1945 -- Conceptual Enlargement of the Shelf Doctrine: 1945โ{128}{147}1958 -- The 1958 Conference on the Law of the Sea -- IV: Bilateral Perspectives of the Legal Regime of the Continental Shelf -- American and British Shelf Practice in the 1940โ{128}{153}s -- Coastal Right of Exclusive Control in Bilateral Perspectives -- Shelf Utilization and Responsibility of States: From Bilateral to Multilateral Perspectives -- Provisional Conclusions -- V: The Continental Shelf and International Custom: Assessment and Conclusions -- The Continental Shelf Regime -- International Custom: Aspects of Growth -- Selected Bibliography