The 30 land-locked states in the world, and the additional 25 or so states which count themselves as geographically disadvantaged because they have relatively small or confined maritime zones, sought special treatment at the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea; and the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention reflects their considerable success. This is one of the more remarkable achievements in modern international law, because the land-locked and geographically disadvantaged states (LLGDS, in UNCLOS III-speak) had been regarded as, at best, peripheral actors and, at worst, as almost wholly without real interests in the Law of the Sea until the late 1960s. In this careful and thorough analysis of the legal position of these states, Dr Vasciannie explains exactly how much they did achieve, and how well that measures up to the needs and demands of the LLGDS.

The opening chapter discusses the emergence of the group of LLGDS, and the coherence of the concept of geographic disadvantage underlying it, at UNCLOS III. It is followed by a