When Professor Harry Scheiber asked me to address the subject of “institutional arrangements for the ocean,” it struck me that this matter keeps coming back. This does not mean that it is irrelevant or meaningless to continue to address it. Quite the contrary.

Straits are by definition narrow waterways linking seas and the ocean which often provide significant time-saving and cost-cutting navigational routes to commercial shipping. In turn, this navigationally advantageous position can give coastal States the power to exert control over passage of international shipping by imposing regulatory conditions or even by ...

In international law as in other fields, elegance is the result of careful design, appropriateness for context, and functional performance. David Caron’s interest in thinking systematically about environmental treaty design led him to ponder the policy tools and institutions that can be created by States when they negotiate treaties.2 This ...

To be effective in shaping state conduct, the liberalism and idealism that informs public international law must contend with geopolitical realities and the role of power in the international system. David D. Caron was unafraid to address this dichotomy.1 His work bridged epistemic communities and offered concrete approaches to some ...

With the sudden death of Professor David Caron in February 2018, the field of ocean law and policy studies lost one of its most gifted and celebrated leaders. His many contributions to scholarship on oceans issues were only one segment of a large corpus of writings in which he contributed ...

Altered weather patterns, exacerbated drought and flood cycles, increased incidence of wildfires, melting glaciers—we frequently hear about how human-induced climate change is affecting everyday life and the world around us. But the attention frequently focuses on terrestrial impacts, stopping at the coastline with observance of rising sea levels.

Oceans have played a critical role in shielding Earth from some of the more serious impacts of climate change by absorbing approximately 30 percent of emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide. However, this has resulted in an approximate 26 percent increase in acidity of oceans since the industrial period. This not only ...

The oceans and their biodiversity are coming under increasing threat from climate-change impacts including increasing water temperatures, deoxygenation, and ocean acidification. The adverse effects of climate change are exacerbating the stresses experienced by species, habitats, and ecosystems in all marine areas and diminishing the ecological services they provide.