The Legal Basis of the Advisory Function of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea as A Full Court: An Unresolved Issue

Jianjun GAO^*

^*Professor, Faculty of International Law, China University of Political Science and Law.

© Copyright 2021 Korea Maritime Institute. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jun 30, 2012

ABSTRACT

Under the present provisions of the LOS Convention and the ITLOS Statute, there is no legal basis for the advisory function of the ITLOS as a full court. And the subsequent practice and implied powers doctrine can not provide legal basis for the ITLOS in this respect either. The ITLOS may acquire the advisory function through the amendment of its Statute by the states parties to the LOS Convention. Furthermore, the advisory jurisdiction provided for in article 138 of the ITLOS Rules is not appropriate, for it can be used by states to request opinions as regards the controversy or even disputes between them.

Keywords: advisory jurisdiction; ITLOS; Convention on the Law of the Sea