The world’s oceans account for more than 70% of the earth’s surface. The great majority of inter-continental trade is carried over seaways. Underwater cables represent the lifeline of international communication. A large proportion of the worldwide protein requirements is met by fisheries. The oceans play a decisive role in the global ecosystem: They have, however, been misused for decades as the earth’s rubbish dump. Against this backdrop the international law of the sea, a partial legal order within the greater scheme of public international law, aims to establish a coherent system regulating the peaceful and sustainable use of the oceans. It includes all aspects of the uses as well as the protection and research of the oceans. As an aspect of private law, maritime law, by contrast, deals with the regulation of the legal relationship between the relevant private actors. It is primarily a practical, and indeed important, particular private law governing domestic and international merchant shipping.
With the series “Internationales Seerecht und Seehandelsrecht / Studies in International Law of the Sea and Maritime Law” an academic, internationally focused forum has been created within which the many facets of national and international law of the sea and maritime law shall be presented to a broad professional audience from both academic and practical backgrounds. The series is open to thematically suitable publications in the form of dissertations, habilitations, selected monographies and edited volumes with contributions from leading experts from both practical and academic background in German, English and Norwegian.