Conference: "Rounding the Cape - Storms or Good Hope for the Law at Sea" 28 - 30 April 2025
Click here Conference: "Rounding the Cape - Storms or Good Hope for the Law at Sea" 28-30 April 25
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On behalf of several organisations and institutions, the ILA South African Branch would like to share a roundtable event which will be held from 28 to 30 April 2025 on the inner workings, challenges, and opportunities faced by African countries and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
'The Cape, at the southwestern tip of Africa, has, together with the coast that stretches eastwards up to Nelson Mandela Bay, a unique place in the maritime world. This is where the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet at the edge of the Southern Ocean, in arguably the most complex, powerful and unpredictable crucible of the marine environment. Outside of the Pacific Ocean, this remains the only natural and permanently-open sea passage between the East and the West, the use of which has immeasurable significance in world affairs.
It is apposite that one engages on its shores with a number of current developments produced by tensions largely unanticipated when the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was drafted. Many African States made a crucial contribution to the Convention coming into force thirty years ago and they have a vital stake, in the absence of any other constitutional framework at the global level, in the Convention remaining the foundation on which to adapt existing regimes and develop new regimes to meet the multifaceted challenges to which humankind is confronted.'
Throughout the event, there will be four half-day sessions on themes including Resource-related tensions, Safety, security and AI-related tensions, Human rights-related jurisdictional challenges and The future of the law of the sea and maritime law in Africa.
