Marine cadastres and the law

Description

There are several problems facing those who work with marine boundaries on a daily basis. First, new law is emerging in an attempt to cope with an emerging set of marine resource and boundary issues. Second, there are a wide variety of ocean boundary types, but marine rights are not usually tied to a parcel, and are generally held in unbundled form, unlike the traditional “bundle of sticks” view of land tenure. Third, there are many marine areas where boundaries are insufficiently defined from a legal perspective should a conflict arise. The objectives of this thesis are to (1) examine case studies from recent major sources of law including international convention, regional legislation, and arbitration panel decisions to determine common threads affecting those working with marine boundaries; and (2) develop a legal framework that may be used to test the essential ways in which law and policy affect this work.