On Legal Issues Of Provisional Arrangements Before Maritime Delimitation

Since the establishment of the system of provisional arrangements in Articles 74 and 83 common paragraph 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,States have been actively cooperating in disputed sea areas by means of provisional arrangements prior to maritime delimitation.At present,there are mainly three types of international application of provisional arrangements before maritime delimitation.First,provisional arrangements with a joint cooperation agreement are adopted.That is,prior to the delimitation of disputed sea areas,the parties concerned reach an agreement on interim arrangements to cooperate and share the interests of the disputed sea areas.The second is the provisional arrangement for the demarcation of provisional maritime limits.That is,the provisional maritime limits are delimited only through a provisional arrangement agreement,and the parties carry out specific maritime activities in the delimited waters separately,and the benefits derived from them are not shared among the States concerned.Third,temporary arrangements for the suspension of activities in disputed waters.That is,in areas with acute conflicts and contradictions,when it is difficult for the parties to reach consensus on unilateral maritime activities or multilateral cooperation in a short time,temporary arrangements are used as temporary measures to suspend disputes in disputed waters.These models of provisional arrangements provide useful ideas for the parties concerned to consult on provisional arrangements.In practice,due to the disputes over the specific understanding and application of the provisions of the provisional arrangement,the negotiation process of the provisional arrangement in disputed sea areas has been pushed forward slowly.At present,there are many problems in the application of the provisional arrangement before maritime delimitation,and the main problems should be paid attention to.First,the scope of the subject of temporary arrangements is vague.In complex maritime disputes,the forces of various countries contend with each other,the intervention of non-regional powers in the interim arrangement or the suspension of the rights of a third country,all of which make the application of the interim arrangement deviate from its original intention and make it difficult to achieve the purpose of maintaining peace and stability in the disputed waters.Second,the scope of temporary arrangements is too limited.The temporary arrangements of countries in the disputed waters have always focused on cooperation in low-sensitivity areas,and there has been no breakthrough in cooperation in high-sensitivity areas,which has failed to fundamentally change the situation of constant conflicts in the disputed waters.Finally,understanding of the obligations of the States concerned in the interim arrangements varies widely among States.Although the interim arrangement clearly states that the parties concerned should comply with the positive obligation of "making every effort" and the negative obligation of "not to endanger or impede the final agreement",the lack of more specific criteria for identification has led to a wide gap between the parties’ understanding of the meaning of their own actions and the nature of other countries’ maritime activities.Through comprehensive analysis and discussion of the above common problems in provisional arrangements,we look forward to the solutions to the application of provisional arrangements before maritime delimitation,which should focus on the core contradictions in the specific understanding and application of provisional arrangements provisions,with the main ideas of standardizing the scope of participants in provisional arrangements,expanding the applicable fields of provisional arrangements and improving the criteria for determining the obligations of the parties concerned.To provide tailored recommendations for the application of interim arrangements.