The North Sea Perspectives on Regional Environmental Co- Operation

The North Sea, one of the most intensively used sea-areas in the world, may well be one of the most intensively regulated sea-areas as well. As human activity developed in the North Sea national & later international regulations followed these developments. The result has been what is commonly called a piecemeal approach. The legal regime of the North Sea has developed in an incremental manner. Thus one conventional instrument after the other, covering different user-functions like vessel-source pollution, fisheries, ocean dumping & land-based pollution, was adopted. In contrast to more modern approaches these legal instruments have their own framework. The result is that the instruments are scattered in many different documents, & even for the more well informed North Sea watcher it is difficult to obtain a comprehensive overview of the regulatory instruments. The North Sea: Basic Legal Documents on Regional Environmental Co-operation offers a comprehensive view of the instruments dealing with all sources of marine pollution in the North Sea, be they ocean dumping, land-based pollution or vessel-source pollution. The book contains many legal documents, including maps & tables. It also contains non-conventional instruments such as the texts of the declarations of the International North Sea Conferences, held between 1984 & 1990, & recommendations & decisions of e.g. the Paris Commission on Land-Based Pollution & the Oslo Commission on Dumping. Furthermore the book contains documentation on relatively new areas of environmental concern in the North Sea region, i.e. nature conservation & management of living resources. The book supplements The North Sea: Perspectives on Regional Environmental Co-operation also edited by David Freestone & Ton IJlstra which contains 26 essays on legal & policy aspects of environmental protection in the North Sea.