Accountability and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf: Deciding Who Owns the Ocean Floor

摘要

This Article presented a number of reforms to the CLCS that, if adopted, could greatly enhance the institution's accountability to the nations that created it. In doing so, it articulated several strong reasons why such accountability is important. Through its work, the CLCS helps to shape both the meaning of a treaty provision and the limits of states' rights under it. Greater accountability to those states thus is normatively appropriate and necessary to ensure that the Commission's interpretation of article 76 is technically and legally sound.