Equidistance Method Essay

According to the 1958 Conventions, the application of the equidistance method was compulsory in the absence of an agreement, historical titles or special circumstances. This was name the combined equidistance/special circumstances rule.

The emergence of the equidistance principle in early treaty law, such as in the 1958 Conventions, may be elucidate by the act that this principle struck a incontrovertible equilibrium between predictability and flexibility, objectiveness and discretion. Moreover, the combined rule comprehensively consider the principle of equal distribution of the area of converging or overlapping claims, in the destitution of inequities proceed from abnormal coastal shape or greater dissimilarity in coastal lengths. Finally,
However, despite the acknowledgment of the principle of distance as the base of entitlement to both the EEZ and the CS within 200 nautical miles, the privileged role of equidistance was firmly oppose by the ICJ and dissenting judges. The privileged condition of equidistance method was degrade by the ICJ and arbitral tribunals, it was contemplate as a method which in some cases may precede to inequitable and irrational results. In the majority of cases, it was stated that equidistance was not a obligatory rule of law, but simply one method among others and it was not observe as part of customary international law which operate the major role in delimitation process. The deficiency of the equidistance method, even moderate by the conception of special circumstances, led to its undoing. The dismantle and temper down of equidistance went so far that the terms “equidistance” and “median line” have vanish from the text of Article 74 and 83 of the 1982 LOS Convention. It last only in Article 15 of the 1982 LOS Convention. This was called “a holy war against equidistance” by the French author Prosper
The Court rejected the contention of Denmark and the Netherlands to the effect that the delimitations in question had to be carried out in accordance with the principle of equidistance as defined in Article 6 of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf, holding: "That the Federal Republic, which had not ratified the Convention, was not legally bound by the provisions of Article 6; That the equidistance principle was not a necessary consequence of the general concept of continental shelf rights, and was not a rule of customary international law."

Rejecting the contentions of Denmark and the Netherlands, the Court examine that the principle of equidistance, as systematize in Article 6 of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf, had not been intend by the International Law Commission as an emerging rule of customary international law. This article could not be aforesaid to have introverted or crystallized such a rule. This was substantiate by the fact that any State might constitute reservations in respect of Article 6, unlike Articles 1, 2 and 3, on signing, ratifying or acceding to the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental