Over the past forty years, the law of the sea has undergone profound transformation. Despite the apparent stability offered by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, its framework has proven dynamic, evolving through successive implementing agreements, emerging environmental challenges, and shifting geopolitical realities.
Bringing together leading scholars from across generations, this volume reflects on four decades of legal development, scholarship, and practice. From the unfinished agendas of the Convention to the transformative 2023 BBNJ Agreement, the contributions explore how the law of the sea has adapted—and continues to adapt—to issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, technological change, and global governance.
Rich in insight and forward-looking in perspective, this collection offers a unique intergenerational assessment of the past, present, and future of ocean governance, highlighting both the resilience of the existing regime and the pressures that may reshape it in the years to come.

This work was originally published, in part, as Volume 40, Issue 4 (2025): IJMCL 40th anniversary Special Issue of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law.