The issues surrounding the regimes of ice-covered areas, international straits, and passage rights of State vessels are analysed for the purpose of assessing the status of law and State practice in Russian Arctic waters. Passage through the Northern Sea Route has for decades been one of the most contentious legal issues in Soviet/Russian - U.S. relations. The jurisdictional claims of the large Arctic coastal States indicate substantial deviation from application of established law of the sea. The regimes of straits used for international navigation and passage rights of State vessels seem...

The relationship between straits and interoceanic canals has always been ambiguous. Unlike straits, interoceanic canals are neither natural nor subject to a universal legal regime like the Law of the Sea. However, straits and interoceanic canals share comparable historical experiences due to their geographic similarities. Suspending interest in a purely legal analysis, The Panama Canal lets logic yield to experience and considers the Panama Canal as an "artificial strait." The volume recasts the dynamic events that have changed the Panama Canal in the context of three interactive...

In 1986, Lewis M. Alexander, a world-renowned marine geographer, prepared for the U.S. Department of Defense a report, Navigational Restrictions within the New LOS Context: Geographical Implications for the United States. Edited by J. Ashley Roach, the reformatted report is presented in five sections and includes 20 maps, illustrating the world's international straits and major ocean navigation routes. Forty-three tables present the most comprehensive descriptions of the world's straits used for international navigation, as well as identify various categories of maritime claims. What...