8th MLAS Maritime Mooting Competition 2026

Maritime law, also known as the law of the sea and admiralty law, is among the oldest branches of international law, with roots in the Rhodian Sea Law of antiquity and the medieval Rolls of Oléron. Its modern foundations were laid by Hugo Grotius's Mare Liberum (1609), which advanced the doctrine of freedom of the seas against rival claims to maritime sovereignty advanced by Portugal, Spain, and later by John Selden's Mare Clausum. Over the following centuries, customary rules on territorial waters, navigation, prize, salvage, and the conduct of war at sea coalesced through state practice and treaty, but the absence of codified limits produced repeated disputes over fishing rights, neutral shipping, and the breadth of coastal jurisdiction. The twentieth century brought systematic codification. The 1958 Geneva Conventions on the Law of the Sea were superseded by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), opened for signature in 1982 and in force since 1994. Often called the 'constitution of the oceans,' UNCLOS established the regimes of the territorial sea (12 nm), contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone (200 nm), continental shelf, high seas, and the deep seabed 'Area' as the common heritage of mankind. It also created three key institutions: the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the International Seabed Authority (ISA), and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). Parallel commercial and safety regimes are administered through the International Maritime Organization (IMO), covering SOLAS, MARPOL, the STCW Convention, and rules on liability, salvage, and arrest of ships. Contemporary maritime law faces mounting pressure points. Overlapping claims in the South China Sea, the Arctic, and the Eastern Mediterranean test UNCLOS dispute-settlement mechanisms, as seen in the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration. Climate change is reshaping baselines and threatening the maritime entitlements of small island states, while the 2023 BBNJ Agreement on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction and the ISA's evolving Mining Code on deep-seabed exploitation raise unresolved questions of equity and environmental protection. Persistent challenges from piracy, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, undersea cable security, autonomous vessels, and grey-zone naval activity continue to stretch a framework drafted for a different geopolitical era.