Frozen Baselines In A Warming World: Rethinking Maritime Entitlements And Statehood Under International Law
Rifaa Rahman, International Law and Organization, Department of Legal Studies, University of Madras
ABSTRACT
Sea-level rise driven by anthropogenic climate change is projected to permanently submerge coastal lowlands and, in extreme cases, entire low- lying island states by the end of this century. Because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) ties every maritime zone the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and the continental shelf to baselines drawn from the physical coastline, a retreating shoreline threatens to shrink, and in extreme cases extinguish, the maritime entitlements of the states most responsible for none of the warming that imperils them. This paper examines whether international law, as it currently stands, can accommodate this threat, and argues that it cannot do so satisfactorily without doctrinal innovation. It contends that the law should move decisively toward permanently fixed baselines, charted once and preserved notwithstanding subsequent coastal recession, as the most coherent means of reconciling the doctrine that the land dominates the sea with the overriding need for legal certainty and equity for climate-vulnerable states. The paper further considers the more difficult question of continued statehood where territory is wholly or substantially lost, testing the Montevideo criteria against emerging State practice, the work of the Pacific Islands Forum and the Alliance of Small Island States, and the International Law Commission's Study Group on sea-level rise. It concludes that while customary international law is visibly moving toward accepting fixed baselines, the harder question of deterritorialised statehood remains unresolved and requires either a dedicated multilateral instrument or a generous, purposive reinterpretation of existing statehood doctrine. The paper closes with concrete recommendations for the future direction of codification.
Keywords: Sea-level rise; UNCLOS; baselines; maritime zones; exclusive economic zone; statehood; Montevideo Convention; International Law Commission; small island developing states; climate change and international law.
