Elisabeth Mann Borgese’s commitment to the law of the sea and her role in the development of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is well known, as is her life-long advocacy for its implementation as a way to bring about a change to the international socio-economic system. Elisabeth’s faith in the role of international law as a ‘break-through’ point1 (see quotation on facing page) on the road to system transformation may seem surprising as she was not a lawyer; many, especially political scientists, might question both the role and importance of international law as a force for social change. However, she was neither uninformed nor was she naïve. She was a political scientist with a sophisticated appreciation of the role of institutions and power relations, or, as she described the law of the sea negotiations in a 1976 meeting, the “grand game.”2 This meant she was able to adapt to, and appreciate, the importance of the interaction between the rapidly changing post-colonial political context and the necessary evolution of the international legal system. Even as early as the mid-1970s she foresaw the development of international law to include more diverse forms of legal obligations that have various names and levels of enforceability, now called ‘principles’, ‘guidelines’, and ‘codes’, for example, with the terminology of ‘governance’ as way to bring about wider global agreement and implementation action.
As many of the essays in this part illustrate, Elisabeth was engaged in a bigger project than merely updating or modernizing the law of the sea. She and others of like mind were engaged in a quest for a system-wide change in global governance. The world’s oceans as the common factor among states were seen as an avenue, a medium, to achieve wider social and economic justice and improved global governance. In an important meeting in 1976 she spoke of the oceans as a ‘test case’ to establishing this new order for global governance.3
The essays focus on several key aspects of the law of the sea and principled ocean governance that Elisabeth emphasized as central. These include the promotion of the goals of the movement for a New International Economic
In her later years Elisabeth began to be more concerned with technology and science and she spoke less of law. In two essays published in the Ocean Yearbook in the two years before her death she wrote of the “The Crisis of Knowledge,” referring mainly to the impact of the high level of uncertainty and understanding about technological developments in all ocean sectors.5 A concern about the rapid development of technology and the widening gap between the developed and less developed economies was also the theme of one of her last essays, which reported on a meeting of United Nations Open-Ended Informal Consultative Process on the Oceans and the Law of the Sea.6 Thus Elisabeth’s concern returned always to the quest for a new world order and greater equity and for peace.
The Oceanic Circle: Governing the Seas as a Global Resource (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1998), 189.
E. Mann Borgese, The Oceanic Circle: Governing the Seas as a Global Resource (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1998), 189.
See, Elisabeth Mann Borgese Fonds, “The New International Economic Order and the Law Of The Sea, Seminar organized jointly by UNITAR and the International Ocean Institute, 7–8 April 1976,” Dalhousie University Archives, Halifax, Canada, MS-2-744, Box 301, Folder 2.
Id.
Mann Borgese, supra note 1, 112.
E. Mann Borgese, “The Crisis of Knowledge,” Ocean Yearbook 15 (2001): 1–6.
E. Mann Borgese, “UNICPOLOS: The Second Session,” Ocean Yearbook 16 (2002): 22–34.