The Imli Treatise on Global Ocean Governance ― Imo and Global Ocean Governance

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) remains the cornerstone of global ocean governance. However, it lacks effective provisions or mechanisms to ensure that all ocean space and related problems are dealt with holistically. With seemingly no opportunity for revision due to the Convention's burdensome amendment provisions, complementary mechanisms dealing with such aspects of global ocean governance including maritime transport, fisheries, and marine environmental sustainability, have been developed under the aegis of the United Nations and other relevant international organizations. This approach is inherently fragmented and unable to achieve sustainable global ocean governance. In light of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 14, the IMLI Treatise proposes a new paradigm on the basis of integrated and cross-sectoral approach in order to realise a more effective and sustainable governance regime for the oceans.

The volume examines how the IMO, with 171 Member States and 3 Associated Members, has and continues to promote the goals of safe, secure, sound, and efficient shipping on clean oceans. It studies the interface and interaction between UNCLOS and IMO instruments and how IMO's safety, security, and environmental protection conventions have contributed to global ocean governance, including the peaceful order of the polar regions.

David Attard, Director, International Maritime Law Institute, Rosalie Balkin, Former Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations, International Maritime Organization, Donald Greig, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University

David Attard, David Attard, the General Academic Coordinator and Editor of this series, is the Director of the International Maritime Law Institute. He has been a judge at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea since 2011, and Vice-President of the Tribunal since 2017. He read law at the University of Malta and the University of Oxford, was appointed to the Chair of Public International Law at the University of Malta, and has been a Visiting Professor of International Law at the University of Rome II, a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, as well as a Fullbright Fellow at the Yale Law School.

Rosalie Balkin, the academic coordinator of this volume, is a former Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations at the International Maritime Organization. While she held this position she also served as Secretary of IMO's Legal Committee and for a time also as IMO's Assistant Secretary-General. She was previously Assistant Secretary in the Office of International Law at the Federal Attorney-General's Department in Canberra. She has held numerous academic posts, including at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Melbourne University, New South Wales University, and at the University of Cambridge.


Donald Grieg, the Editor of this Volume, is a Barrister of the Middle Temple and of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University, as well as an Honorary Fellow of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. He was for many years Editor of the Australian Year Book of International Law, and has held Visiting Professorships at Nottingham and Bristol Universities, Kings College London, and the London School of Economics and Political science. He was the last Menzies Lecturer at University of Virginia Law School in the United States, in succession to two judges of the High Court of Australia, one of whom was its Chief Justice and the other who became Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia.