Branches of international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 143

As algae and plant-life die and degrade, they consume oxygen, increasing
the hypoxic areas in the seabed. Biotoxic hydrogen sulphide accumulates in the
hypoxic conditions in the sea fl oor and nutrients dissolve back into the water,
especially phosphorus which also increases marine eutrophication. The nutrients
that sink to the bottom accumulate in the sediment and can be released again
to be used by the algae. Eutrophication can cause a serious vicious circle that is
diffi cult to break once it has advanced to a certain point.
The history of marine environmental protection
The oceans of the world have been fully international and largely unregulated
over the centuries. Before the Second World War, there were only a few rules
guiding the ships that sailed on the seas. The central principle was the 'freedom
of the seas', upheld by the Dutch 'father of international law' Hugo Grotius
in his book of 1609, Mare Liberum . Grotius did not stumble upon this principle
in an intellectual or economic vacuum: his 'free seas' argument provided the
powerful Dutch mercantile fl eet the justifi cation to break prevailing trade
monopolies and then establish its own monopolies. The freedom of the high
seas was the essential principle adopted by states prior to the Second World
War. Gradually, for defence purposes, states began to claim sovereignty to a
narrow coastal zone that later developed into the territorial sea of a coastal
state. Before the war, the zone extended 3-4 nautical miles 2 from the coast.
After the Second World War, coastal states began to claim more jurisdic-
tion in the waters around them. As the war ended and as technology
advanced, rights were extended to the sub-sea (continental shelf) adjacent to
their coastlines and its oil and gas resources. Gradually, states began to claim
more extensive marine areas in which to exercise their exclusive rights to
exploit natural resources; in this way the 370-kilometre exclusive economic
zone was created.
Protection of the marine environment advanced less rapidly. The fi rst multi-
lateral marine protection treaty was accomplished in 1954 to regulate oil pollu-
tion by ships. 3 The fi rst negotiation process aiming at a comprehensive
convention on marine issues took place among 86 states in Geneva in 1958.
Although the UN International Law Commission that carried out the preparatory
work for the negotiations had aimed at producing only one single convention,
four separate conventions were agreed: the Convention on the Territorial Sea
and Contiguous Zone, 4 the Convention on the High Seas, 5 the Convention on
the Continental Shelf, 6 and the Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the
Living Resources of the High Seas. 7 However, the protection of the marine
environment did not receive much attention in these negotiations.
The Convention on the High Seas, Articles 24 and 25, required states to
regulate 'pollution of the seas from the discharge of oil from ships or pipelines
or resulting from the exploitation and exploration of the seabed and its
subsoil'. It further encouraged states to 'take measures to prevent pollution of