Laws of the Sea

Laws of the Sea assembles scholars from law, geography, anthropology, and environmental humanities to consider the possibilities of a critical ocean approach in legal studies.
Unlike the United Nations' monumental Convention on the Law of the Sea, which imagines one comprehensive constitutional framework for governing the ocean, Laws of the Sea approaches oceanic law in plural and dynamic ways. Critically engaging contemporary concerns about the fate of the ocean, the collection's twelve chapters range from hydrothermal vents through the continental shelf and marine genetic resources to coastal communities in France, Sweden, Florida, and Indonesia. Documenting the longstanding binary of land and sea, the chapters pose a fundamental challenge to European law's "terracentrism" and its pervasive influence on juridical modes of knowing and making the world. Together, the chapters ask: is contemporary Eurocentric law-and international law in particular-capable of moving away from its capitalist and colonial legacies, established through myriad oceanic abstractions and classifications, toward more amphibious legalities?
Laws of the Sea will appeal to legal scholars, geographers, anthropologists, cultural and political theorists, as well as scholars in the environmental humanities, political ecology, ocean studies, and animal studies.

Irus Braverman is Professor of Law and Adjunct Professor of Geography at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. Her books include Planted Flags: Trees, Land, and Law in Israel/Palestine (2009), Zooland: The Institution of Nature (2012), and Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink (2018) as well as the coedited volume Blue Legalities: The Laws and Life of the Sea (2020). Braverman's monograph, Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel, is forthcoming.

Acknowledgments List of Contributors Introduction Amphibious Legal Geographies: Toward Land-Sea Regimes Irus Braverman Chapter 1 The Vexed Liminality of Hydrothermal Vents: An Opportunity to Unmake the Law of the Sea Surabhi Ranganathan Chapter 2 Commodifying the Oceans: The North Sea Continental Shelf Cases Revisited Henry Jones Chapter 3 Imagining Justice with the Abyssal Ocean Susan Reid Chapter 4 Genetic Freedom of the Seas in the Age of Extractivism: Marine Genetic Resources in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction Irus Braverman Chapter 5 Oceanic Heterolegalities? Ocean Commons and the Heterotopias of Sovereign Legality Vito De Lucia Chapter 6 Mining the Seas: Speculative Fictions and Futures Elizabeth DeLoughrey Chapter 7 Navigating the Structural Coherence of Sea Ice Philip Steinberg, Greta Ferloni, Claudio Aporta, Gavin Bridge, Aldo Chircop, Kate Coddington, Stuart Elden, Stephanie C. Kane, Timo Koivurova, Jessica Shadian, and Anna Stammler-Gossmann Chapter 8 UNCLOS as a Geopolitical Chokepoint: Locked Down, Locked In, Locked Out Elspeth Probyn Chapter 9 From Extended Urbanization to Ocean Gentrification: Miami's River Port and the Precarious Geographies of Haitian Shipping Jeffrey S. Kahn Chapter 10 Miles and Norms in the Fishery of Marseille: On the Interface between Social Norms and Legal Rules Florian Grisel Chapter 11 Divided Environments: Scalar Challenges in Sweden's Marine and Coastal Water Planning Aron Westholm Chapter 12 Good Human-Turtle Relationships in Indonesia: Exploring Intersecting Legalities in Sea Turtle Conservation Annet Pauwelussen & Shannon Switzer Swanson Afterword We Are All Complicit: Performing Law through Wavewriting Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos Index