The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, December. 10, 1982, (“UNCLOS”) lays down a comprehensive regime of law and order in the world’s oceans and seas establishing rules governing all uses of the oceans and their resources.

It defends the notion that all problems of ocean space are closely interrelated and need to be addressed as a whole in a holistic For the entire Mediterranean, the overwhelming majority of nations that surround it, do -in principle- accept UNCLOS  as a legal framework; as a road map to both delimitation of their respective Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), and as dispute settlement mechanism that UNCLOS provides.

Ideally, the recent Oil & Gas exploration activities in eastern Mediterranean, in Greece, Adriatic and elsewhere, should have been governed by UNCLOS provisions as a global legal framework. On April 1998, EU ratified UNCLOS 1982, that became de jure acquis communautaire, affecting all future candidate member-states, Turkey of course not excluded. Greece might propose and further actively promote through its diplomatic channels an initiative as to declare a unified European Exclusive Economic Zone in the Mediterranean area, embracing all EU member-states that surround the basin and that incidentally had all individually ratify UNCLOS.

You may find the full working paper, in English, here.