Dissertation committee:
PhD Suprvisor Maria Gavouneli: mgavoun@law.uoa.gr
Professor Photini Pazartzis: phpazart@law.uoa.gr | fay@otenet.gr
Professor Petros Liacouras, University of Piraeus: petrosliacouras@yahoo.gr
Associate Professor Emmanuela Doussis, SciencesPo, University of Athens: edoussis@pspa.uoa.gr
Associate Professor Konstantinos Antonopoulos, Democritus University of Thrace: kantonop@law.duth.gr
Assistant Professor George Kyriacopoulos: yokygr@law.uoa.gr
Lecturer Dr Anastasios Gourgourinis: agourg@law.uoa.gr
Summary:
Throughout centuries coastal States have expended their domination over sea areas, from the belt of territorial waters, securing access to their land, to the open oceans and the seabed below, controlling exploitation of resources. To legitimately access the seabed, coastal States had to justify the legal basis on which they were able to exercise rights therein. While, in general international law, on land, title to territory is based on the effective occupation of that territory, it appears that, at sea, actual occupation cannot apply.
Sovereign rights over the seabed are justified on the ground of extension of the title over the land territory. In the law of the sea, the right emanates from the land territory. The regime of the continental shelf is based on the principle that the seabed is the natural prolongation of the land territory. The seabed, to some extent, represents the continuation of the land territory that together form a geographical unit. The continental shelf is considered a part, or more exactly a prolongation, of the land territory, which justifies that certain of the powers applicable on land could also be applicable at sea. Therefore, the State, sovereign over its land territory, can extend its sovereign rights over the adjacent seabed, as the land dominates the sea.
As control of the continental shelf is exercised from land, and that such control becomes less effective farther at sea, the sovereign rights are gradually restricted. The concept of the natural prolongation of the land territory entails a two-fold idea. It entitles to the seabed, which represents its prolongation, and constrains the breadth of the continental shelf, to form a natural extension. Based on that concept, the submarine areas can be included in the continental shelf only and in as much as they represent a geomorphologic unit with the land mass. The submerged prolongation of the land mass is part of the continental shelf as long as it represents the natural prolongation of the land territory.
