International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS)

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on December 10, 1982. The Convention entered into force on November 16, 1994, and established an international framework for law over "all ocean space, its uses and resources". The Convention also established the International Seabed Authority, with responsibility for the regulation of seabed mining beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, that is beyond the limits of the territorial sea, the contiguous zone and the continental shelf.

The Tribunal has the power to settle disputes between states parties (there are currently 161: 160 states plus the European Union ).

Composition

According to its founding statute, the Tribunal has a set of 21 serving judges from a variety of states parties in three primary bodies:

• The Chamber of Summary Procedure
• The Chamber for Fisheries Disputes
• The Chamber for Marine Environment Disputes

In addition, at the request of Chile and the European Union, the Tribunal also set up a special chamber to deal with the case concerning the Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Swordfish Stocks in the South-Eastern Pacific Ocean (Chile/European Union).

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is based in Hamburg, Germany.

Current judges

Country	Name	Inauguration	President	Vice president
Argentina	Hugo Caminos	1996
Brazil	Vicente Marotta Rangel	1996
Bulgaria	Alexander Yankov	1996
Grenada	L. Dolliver M. Nelson	1996	2002–2005	1999–2002
India	P. Chandrasekhara Rao	1996	1999–2002
Jordan	Joseph Akl	1996		2005–2008
Germany	Rüdiger Wolfrum	1996	2005–2008	1996–1999
Italy	Tullio Treves	1996
Senegal	Tafsir Malick Ndiaye	1996
Cape Verde	José Luis Jesus	1999	2008–2011
France	Jean-Pierre Cot	2002
Trinidad and Tobago	Anthony Amos Lucky	2003
Poland	Stanisław Pawlak	2005
Austria	Helmut Türk	2005		2008–
Japan	Shunji Yanai	2005	2011–
Tanzania	James L. Kateka	2005
South Africa	Albert J.Hoffmann	2005
China	Zhiguo Gao	2008
Algeria	Boualem Bouguetaia	2008
Russia	Vladimir Vladimirovich Golitsyn	2008
South Korea	Jin-Hyun Paik	2009