In The Estonian Straits, Alexander Lott establishes the interrelations between the main legal categories of straits. Through this detailed and exceptional account, he provides legal classifications for the Viro Strait in the Gulf of Finland as well as the Irbe Strait and the Sea of Straits in the Gulf of Riga. Consequently, the passage rights of foreign ships and aircrafts in the northeastern part of the Baltic Sea are determined. The author demonstrates that the legal regime of the Estonian Straits has been and continues to be determined by such factors as the outer limits of maritime zones, treaties, islands, maritime boundary delimitation, domestic law on internal waters and baselines as well as geopolitical implications (particularly the concept of State continuity).

The four 1958 Geneva Conventions on the Law of the Sea, which codi?ed and progressively developed this sector of our legislation, were rather ephemeral despite the fact that they were constituent Conventions. In fact, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) again undertook the same task with the same spirit 20 years later after a long drawn out global negotiation process in which all the marine areas and problems pending were analysed and discussed by the countries attending, and an apparently strengthened majority was attained, including the essential agreement between the principal naval powers and the third world countries, symbolised most grossly in the recognition of exclusive economic areas which were 200 miles wide in exchange for a signi?cant alteration to the legal rules applicable to the international straits. From 1973 to 1982, the negotiations showed that there were a number of particular factors affecting the seas: “strait” countries, user countries, long range ?shing countries, embedded countries, archipelagic countries, broad platform countries, etc. In 1982 when the UNCLOS was adopted, it seemed to be a text with justi?ed pretensions to be in force for a long period of time as the nine years of negotiations required for its adoption had taken into account the main problems pending agreement although not absolutely all.

The right of transit passage in straits and the analogous right of archipelagic sealanes passage in archipelagic states, negotiated in the 1970s and embodied in the 1982 UNCLOS, sought to approximate the freedom of navigation and overflight while expressly recognising the sovereignty or jurisdiction of the coastal state over the waters concerned. However, the allocation of rights and duties of the coastal state and third states is open to interpretation. Recent developments in state practice, such as Australia's requirement of compulsory pilotage in the Torres Strait, the bridge across the Great Belt and the proposals for a bridge across the Strait of Messina, the enhanced environmental standards applicable in the Strait of Bonifacio and Canada's claims over the Arctic Route, make it necessary to reassess the whole common law of straits. The Legal Regime of Straits examines the complex relationship between the coastal state and the international community.

Read also Alexander Lott's blog on the recent Award of the Annex VII Arbitral Tribunal in the dispute concerning the Kerch Strait incident. Hybrid Threats and the Law of the Sea debates the practice of states that have resorted to discriminatory navigational restrictions or aggression against foreign ships and aircraft in densely navigated straits. The book explores both widely acknowledged and lesser-known maritime incidents that meet the characteristics of hybrid warfare or hybrid conflict. This research approaches hybrid threats from the perspective of the interrelationship between navigational restrictions, law enforcement, armed attack, and the legal regime of straits. It provides guidance for determining whether the rules of armed conflict or law enforcement are applicable to various naval incidents.