Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
BONDED REASON
The Camouco
The rules governing the peaceful settlement of disputes under Part XV of the Law of the Sea Convention 1982 (LOSC) are fiendishly complex but the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is slowly but surely securing for itself an important position in the regulation of maritime affairs.1
Its recent judgment in the Camouco
case2
upon an application for prompt release brought on the authority of Panama against France under Art. 292 of the LOSC is the second of its kind3
and this innovative form of jurisdiction
1. For an overview of the LOSC dispute settlement procedure see R.R.Churchill and A.V.Lowe, The International Law of the Sea,
3rd edn (1999), 453–461; J.G.Merrills, International Dispute Settlement, 3rd edn (1998), 170–196; J.G.Collier and A.V.Lowe, The Settlement of Disputes in International Law
(1999), 84–95.
2. Panama
v. France (The Camouco),
Application for Prompt Release, Judgment, 7 February 2000. The text is available on the UN Law of the Sea Website: http://www.un.org/Depts/los.
3. The first such application provided the Tribunal with its first case, in St Vincent and the Grenadines
v. Guinea (The M/V Saiga (No. 1)),
Application for Prompt Release, Judgment of 4 December 1997, 110 I.L.R. 736; 37 I.L.M. 360. For comment see N.K.Meeson, “A Prompt but Controversial Decision for Prompt Release” [1998] LMCLQ 485; B.Oxman, “The M/V Saiga” (1998) 92 A.J.I.L. 278; A.V.Lowe, “ITLOS: The M/V Saiga: the First Case in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea” (1999) 48 I.C.L.Q. 187.
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