United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea at 30

On the occasion of the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the opening for signature of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, delegates of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea overwhelmingly responded to the request from the Legal Counsel of the United Nations to send their personal recollections and reflections to be set out in a publication. The result is a very personal tribute to the negotiations which took place in the last century and which led to the adoption of the Convention. It is a reflection of the spirit of consensus at the Third United Nations Conference and of the importance the Convention still has thirty years later as the legal framework for all matters related to the oceans and seas: the ""constitution for the oceans"".