1 - Emerging Technology and Maritime Boundary Dispute Resolution

Summary

Where the maritime claims of adjacent or opposite coastal states overlap with one another, a potential maritime boundary exists. Thanks to the extensions of maritime claims offshore, the number of potential maritime boundaries has substantially increased and only around half of potential maritime boundaries have been even partially settled. The role of technology in the evolution of maritime boundary delimitation is outlined. Emerging technologies, especially space-based infrastructure, are explored and found to have an increasingly important role to play in the determination of the location of the land/sea interface at the coast and thus the baselines from which equidistance lines are calculated as well as in terms of positioning technologies, allowing the realization of a coherent global geodetic reference system. The role of emerging technologies in the context of maritime boundary dispute resolution is also considered.