It is very hard for a lawyer to understand the complex scientific prerequisites that determine the drawing of a certain line, and very hard for a scientist to follow the juridical subtleties that arise once that line is embodied in a legal text. This is the reason why the editors have tried to pool their different experiences in this atlas. They have chosen some important cases and topics and produced the relevant maps and comments. In the commentary they have stressed either the scientific or the legal aspects of the subject, or both, as the case may require. The main aim of Lines in the Sea is to give a graphical representation of those provisions of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that can be reproduced on maps. The previous 1958 Geneva Conventions have also been considered, together with the practice that has developed through agreements between the States concerned.

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