| The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provides the most promising avenue to explore the meaning of "sustainable development" in international law and international relations. As a structure of norms and institutions, the Convention defines two governance strategies constitutive of the paradigm of sustainable development: the regime of international cooperation embodied in the Exclusive Economic Zone, and the Common Heritage regime which is applicable to the seabed beyond national jurisdiction. Taken together, the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the Common Heritage of Humanity (CHH) implement a comprehensive approach to realize sustainable development at the universal level.; Both the EEZ and the CHH give normative recognition to the special interests and needs of the developing States in the international community. They conceive of unprecedented practices in development and global sharing that can only alleviate the intensifying disparities between rich nations and poor nations. Less inequality in the international community, understood as the movement towards the ideal equalization of all States' capacities for rights and obligations, is the sine qua non of a sustainable world.; The significance of the "international law of sustainable development", for the oceans and beyond, is most clearly demonstrated in the programmatic evolution, normative consolidation, and progressive (as well as retrogressive) institutionalization of the CHH as a fundamental principle of international law. The protracted controversy behind the creation of a legal order for the remote seabed is a valuable experience with direct implications on the understanding and practical pursuit of sustainable development. The overall claim of the CHH principle to recast international legal relations in a very fundamental way is nothing more but the legal, political, and moral imperative underlying the cause of sustainable development. |
