25 June 2013 | CIL Seminar Series
Military Activities in the EEZ
Introduction
The topic of military activities at sea often generates more heat than light. Nowhere is this more true than in parts of Southeast Asia. A proper understanding of the subject requires careful consideration of the role of military activities in the system for the maintenance of international peace and security, the relationship between the law of the sea and that system, and the role of the regime of the exclusive economic zone in that context. A global rather than an exclusively local or regional perspective is required. If the map on the wall shows little more than your own waters or a particular semi-enclosed sea, there is a significant risk that the map will lure you into myopic conclusions regarding the law of the sea in general and the conduct of military activities at sea in particular. This is especially true of the existing and emerging maritime powers in Asia, notably China, India, Japan, and South Korea. The debate needs to move beyond the notion that a coastal state can claim rights for itself that it denies to other coastal states, and that the maintenance of coherence and stability in the global regimes for the sea and for international security is somehow the sole concern and responsibility of distant powers.
About the Speaker
Professor Bernard H. Oxman earned an A.B. from Columbia College in 1962 and a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1965. Before joining the University of Miami School of Law in 1977, he was Assistant Legal Adviser for Oceans, Environment, and Scientific Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. He also served as United States Representative to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea and chaired the English Language Group of the Conference Drafting Committee.
At the University of Miami, he regularly teaches conflict of laws, international law, law of the sea, and torts. He served as associate dean of the Law School from 1987 to 1990, and currently is the Faculty Chair of the Law School’s Master of Laws Program in Ocean and Coastal Law. He has been a member of the University’s Faculty Senate since 1996.
He served as co-editor in chief of the American Journal of International Law from 2003 to 2013, and is a member of the American Law Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Institut de Droit international. He served as judge ad hoc both on the International Court of Justice in the Black Sea maritime delimitation case between Romania and Ukraine and on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in the land reclamation case between Malaysia and Singapore at the provisional measures stage and in the Bay of Bengal maritime delimitation case between Bangladesh and Myanmar. He has also served on the arbitral tribunal to which the land reclamation case was submitted, and was recently appointed to the arbitral tribunal to which the dispute between Argentina and Ghana regarding the detention of the ARA Libertad was submitted.
Professor Oxman has published numerous books and articles on the law of the sea and other international law subjects. His widely cited essay entitled The Territorial Temptation: A Siren Song at Sea appears in Volume 100 of the American Journal of International Law (October 2006). He and his co-editor recently organized an agora on the South China Sea that appears in Volume 106 of the AJIL (January 2013).
