References:

Janis, Mark W., An Introduction to International Law, 4th ed. (New York: Aspen, 2003), 73.

North Sea Continental Shelf cases

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

North Sea Continental Shelf

Court

International Court of Justice

Full case name

North Sea Continental Shelf (Federal Republic of Germany/Netherlands)

Date decided

February 20, 1969

Judges sitting

Jos Bustamante y Rivero (President) Vladimir Koretsky (Vice President) Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice Kotaro Tanaka Philip Jessup Gaetano Morelli Muhammad Zafrulla Khan Luis Padilla Nervo Isaac Forster Andre Gros Fouad Ammoun Csar Bengzon Petrn Sture Petrn Manfred Lachs Mosler (ad hoc for Germanby)

Max Srensen (ad hoc for The Netherlands)

Case opinions

Declaration attached to Judgment:Muhammad Zafrulla Khan Declaration attached to Judgment: Csar Bengzon Separate Opinion: Philip Jessup Separate Opinion: President Jos Bustamante y Rivero Separate Opinion: Luis Padilla Nervo Separate Opinion: Fouad Ammoun Dissenting Opinion: Vice President Vladimir Koretsky Dissenting Opinion: Kotaro Tanaka Dissenting Opinion: Gaetano Morelli Dissenting Opinion: Manfred Lachs Dissenting Opinion: Max Srensen (ad hocfor The Netherlands)

North Sea Continental Shelf

Court

International Court of Justice

Full case name

North Sea Continental Shelf (Federal Republic of Germany/Denmark)

Date decided February 20, 1969

Judges sitting

Jos Bustamante y Rivero (President) Vladimir Koretsky (Vice President) Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice Kotaro Tanaka Philip Jessup

Gaetano Morelli Muhammad Zafrulla Khan Luis Padilla Nervo Isaac Forster Andre Gros Fouad Ammoun Csar Bengzon Petrn Sture Petrn Manfred Lachs Mosler (ad hoc for Germanby) Max Srensen (ad hoc for The Netherlands)

Case opinions

Declaration attached to Judgment:Muhammad Zafrulla Khan Declaration attached to Judgment: Csar Bengzon Separate Opinion: Philip Jessup Separate Opinion: President Jos Bustamante y Rivero Separate Opinion: Luis Padilla Nervo Separate Opinion: Fouad Ammoun Dissenting Opinion: Vice President Vladimir Koretsky Dissenting Opinion: Kotaro Tanaka Dissenting Opinion: Gaetano Morelli Dissenting Opinion: Manfred Lachs Dissenting Opinion: Max Srensen (ad hocfor The Netherlands)

The North Sea Continental Shelf cases were a series of disputes that came to theInternational Court of Justice in 1969. They involved agreements among Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands regarding the "delimitation" of areasrich in oil and gasof the continental shelf in the North Sea.

History[edit]
Germany's North Sea coast is concave, while the Netherlands' and Denmark's coasts are convex. If the delimitation had been determined by the equidistance rule ("drawing a line each point of which is equally distant from each shore"), Germany would have received a smaller portion of the resource-rich shelf relative to the two other states. Thus Germany argued that the length of the coastlines be used to determine the delimitation.[1] Germany wanted the ICJ to apportion the Continental Shelf to the proportion of the size of the state's adjacent land and not by the rule of equidistance. The Court ultimately urged the parties to "abat[e] the effects of an incidental special feature [Germany's concave coast] from which an unjustifiable difference of treatment could result." In subsequent negotiations, the states granted to Germany most of

the additional shelf it sought.[2] The cases are viewed as an example of "equity praeter legem"that is, equity "beyond the law"when a judge supplements the law with equitable rules necessary to decide the case at hand. [3]