Seminar on Maritime Spaces and Administrative Law
On the twenty third of March 2022, the research group for Natural Resource Law, Environmental Law and and Development Law welcomed Rui Guerra da Fonseca to speak about Maritime spaces and Administrative Law.
Main content
The Law of the Sea contains principles and rules of international law concerning maritime/marine affairs which constitute important sources of administrative law. In fact, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982) has underlying issues such as control over offshore natural resources, exploration & exploitation of deep seabed and seafloor, marine environment and states’ powers over navigational issues that claim for typical tools of administrative law for their implementation and control. This happens also because those principles and rules are no longer only addressed to states but intend to regulate private conducts and administrative powers related to them. Beyond that, aspects like maritime spatial planning cannot be properly grasped away from administrative law. Thus, administrative law is essential to discipline maritime spaces even if many of its fundamental sources are of international (and European) nature.
Rui Guerra da Fonseca is an Assistant Professor of the University of Lisbon School of Law, with special interests in Administrative Law, Law of the Sea and International Human Rights Law. He has written his PhD on Administrative Law about the grounds for administrative self-enforcement powers. In the last ten years he has been teaching International Human Rights Law, Law of the Sea, and is presently coordinating a post-graduation course on administrative law of the sea, and a research project on regulatory aspects related to human rights & business. He publishes regularly about these subjects.
