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.