Apuntes sobre delimitación en derecho internacional del mar

The starting point must be what the I.C.J. had to say in the first continental shelf delimitation case decided by it : the 1969 North Sea Continental Shelf Cases Denmark vs F.R.G. The Court stated that there was no single method of delimitation which is obligatory in all circumstances. Also the Court stated that the state practice in the sense of being “extensive’” and “virtually uniform” with regard to the method of delimitation employed. Evidence must exist that the states concerned considered that the use of a particular method of delimitation was rendered obligatory by the existence of a rule of law requiring it. The Court and other arbitral tribunals have had no hesitation in borrowing liberally from it to justify the use of particular methods of delimitation in different circumstances.