Introduction On 11 October 2022, Lebanon and Israel reached a historic agreement to delimit the two countries’ territorial seas and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (‘the Agreement’). The Agreement is ground-breaking for several reasons. First, it is the first maritime boundary agreement reached between countries that have no diplomatic relations.

On 12 October 2021, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its long-awaited judgment in the case of Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v Kenya) on the location of the maritime boundary between Somalia and Kenya. Kenya refused to participate in the oral proceedings on the merits, as discussed here and here.

In December 2018, two incidents brought to the fore the importance of the rules addressing activities in undelimited maritime areas.  The first incident occurred between China and Japan in the East China Sea, and the second took place between Venezuela and Guyana in the Atlantic Ocean. Whereas the establishment of maritime boundaries is the optimum choice when it…