United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait
Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a Global Studies and Maritime Affairs course for undergraduate students by Katherine Sammler, Ph.D. at Cal State Maritime Academy. The open textbook provides for a close reading of the original text outlining ocean legal jurisdictions. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was the unique content of this course which makes it difficult to find all of the information consolidated in one text. Most students access the open textbook online as a PDF.
About the Textbook
Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982)
Description:
We used the UNCLOS international treaty as our text. I also assigned other readings for the class from journal and news articles, available on the class website. The full name is the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea because there were two previous meetings that failed to reach a treaty, but people often omit the Third, or call it UNCLOS or just Law of the Sea.
Author:
- Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs, United Nations.
Formats:
I use the PDF copy in class, but this is also available online.
Supplemental resources:
The treaty is the only shared text for the course. The students read in groups based on the region they chose to investigate.
Cost savings:
I considered using the textbook, Asia-Pacific and the Implementation of the Law of the Sea by Lee and Gullett, which sells for $138. Since I teach about 44 students each year, this is a total savings for students of $6,072.
License:
There is not a Creative Commons license for this document. This is a publicly available work.
About the Course
GMA 220: 
Comparative Maritime Policies
Description: Provides an overview of the central concepts and approaches of comparative maritime policy and places in a broader world setting by presenting within an integrated fashion many of the organizing concepts findings and theories that structure and define the discipline. In addition to learning the specifics about the conduct of maritime politics in a variety of different countries students will learn the basic concepts theories and general patterns that explain maritime political behavior and political outcomes both within and across the broad system types. We will emphasize many current maritime issues events and problems in our world today and try to gain some theoretical perspective on them.
Prerequisites: GMA 105, GMA 215
Learning outcomes:
- SLO1 Identify and Compare laws and institutions that govern maritime, economic and research activities in the oceans; and the laws and institutions regarding environmental protection.
- SLO2 Explain how the international oceans regime balances the interests of sovereign states for control of their coastal waters against the demands of maritime powers for freedom of action in the seas.
- SLO3 Evaluate how the UN Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) defines sovereign and non- sovereign marine spaces; and how this shapes national and international policymaking.
- SLO4 Analyze and Synthesize facts and concepts in the context of current political issues and data; current security challenges in the oceans (such as territorial disputes) and how governments are responding to them.
- SLO5 Critique concepts of international law necessary to understand the development and implementation of the international oceans regime.
Curricular changes:
This course was previously taught by an adjunct who left the department and there were no records for what was taught. Thus, I had to develop the course myself.
This course will consider the jurisdictions designated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Having only been finished in 1982 and brought into force in 1994, the ocean jurisdictions created by UNCLOS are a very recent understanding and implementation of territory and sovereignty within a space that covers two thirds of the planet. The driving questions we will be investigating together are: What is an Exclusive Economic Zone politically and practically? How are EEZs implemented by nation states around the world?
Teaching and learning impacts:
- Collaborate more with others: Yes
Use wider range of materials: Yes
Student learning improved: Yes
Student retention improved: Unsure
Any unexpected results: No
I consulted a lot of faculty on my campus to ask them about their maritime research and teaching to get ideas of what to include in this course.
Since we focused on this core text, students then looked to journal articles and newspapers to research how the Law of the Sea treaty has been implemented.
Reading the original treaty text, instead of a texbook interpretation, improved the students' close and critical reading skills and ability to read practical documents. They still got the content, but picked up these extra skill that had not been included in the course description.
Sample assignment and syllabus:
This is an example of an assignment I used in the class.
Syllabus
This is the syllabus I used in 2017.
Textbook Adoption
OER Adoption Process:
When this course was taught last, a textbook was not adopted and selected readings were posted on moodle. In my attempt to revamp this course I searched for similar offerings from other universities, however, this is a unique class and I was unable to find comparable syllabi at other universities due to its unique content. For this reason, there is also not an obvious textbook to accompany it. I did find an edited volume of case studies that I thought a good fit, but due to its high cost, at $130 per book, I have chosen to excerpt a chapter from this book, use the UNCLOS treaty text as our main textbook, and supplement with other case studies available in journal articles.
Student access:
The UNCLOS treaty text is freely available from multiple sources online. It was provided to student as a electronic pdf. It is printable on campus for a nominal fee.
Student feedback or participation:
Students were relieved to not have more expenses, especially as CSU is seeking to increase student fees yet again. Going to the original text of a document that is referenced in many of our classes on this campus gave them insight into the actual framing of international ocean law.
I am a Global Studies and Maritimes Affairs professor at the Cal State Maritime University. I teach Ocean Politics, Comparative Maritime Policies, Environmental Policy, and GIS Mapping & Spatial Analysis.
I attempt to integrate unique and wide-ranging interests in both the social sciences and physical sciences into my courses. My teaching philosophy focuses on fostering critical thinking in a way that is applicable towards problems at the convergence of political and environmental issues. While it is always a challenge to weave diverse epistemological perspectives into strategic problem-solving methods, I think such assets will benefit students by incorporating theoretical and practical aspects of learning and performing. I have developed a teaching approach that embraces the diverse learning styles, background knowledges, experiences, and goals of building practical skills and intellectual rigor. I strive to create an environment that respects a diffuse and inclusive balance of power in the classroom. Whether engaging in hand-on activities or discussing a reading assignment, I venture to embolden students by promoting a classroom that constitutes a laboratory of ideas, hypotheses and inquiry.
My research has focused on policies and practices emerging around seabed mining governance in New Zealand and the broader South Pacific. As onshore resource production struggles to meed global demands, the world is turning offshore to meet food, fuel and mineral needs. Expanding jurisdictional claims have created the legal space for development to creep into ocean spaces, putting precious and life sustaining ecosystems under yet another human pressure. Recent extension of national space into the ocean is challenging conventional institutions of governance and necessitating new management regimes, prompting concerns over economic fairness and environmental impacts. South Pacific nations are presumed to have the most to gain from developing their seabed resources given their geologic positioning and large ocean to land territorial ratios.
More recently I have been moving my research in new directions related to the intersection of polar and maritime policy, seabed mining, air and space governance, and the techniques for asserting power over and within these spaces. I aim to investigate the significance and influence of a range of technological advances, expanding human activities, and capital investments, as these factors challenge the political and legal constructions of maritime and outer space, and the atmosphere in between. Focusing on the conceptualization of these spaces as constitutive of a 'vertical commons' this research will critique the ways in, and extent to, which these volumetric spaces that lie supposedly beyond the reach of sovereign states are becoming increasingly sought after to provide offshore, and off-planet, resources and maritime, aerial and extra-terrestrial territorial security.