Excessive Maritime Claims

State practice in the law of the sea has continued to evolve since publication of the 3rd edition of Excessive Maritime Claims in 2012. In this 4th edition, J. Ashley Roach has brought the text up to date, particularly as to the provisions relating to the balance of navigational rights and freedoms with the interests of coastal and island States. Of particular interest are the more detailed explanations of the phrase “freedom of navigation”; the expanded material on baselines and on the practice of archipelagic States, the revisions of the material on the continental shelf, on marine data collection, on submarine cables and pipelines, and US Ocean Policy. A new chapter has been added on islands and other maritime features.

This edition is dedicated to Dr. Robert W. Smith, the premier marine geographer.

J. Ashley Roach, J.D., L.L.M., is a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps and the Office of the Legal Adviser, U.S. State Department. He is the co-author of the third edition of Excessive Maritime Claims (Martinus Nijhoff, 2012).

"[T]he fourth edition maintains the high standard of its predecessors, and continues to be invaluable.…distils decades of diplomatic correspondence into a single source…replete with detail and very well researched. For scholars and practitioners with a serious interest in maritime claims, it is a must-have on the book shelf." -Stuart Kaye, in Ocean Yearbook 36, Brill Nijhoff, 2022