The continental shelf in the law of the sea conventions of 1958 and 1982 and the principal of natural prolongation

The subject of the paper is the evolution of the concept of the continental shelf in international law, shown in the context of natural prolongation of the land territory of a coastal state co-creating this concept. The starting point for the analysis are the determinations of such specialised disciplines of science as: geography, oceanography and geology, and in consequence a possibly accurate topographic description of the sea and ocean floor, determination of the most important physiographic zones and of their characteristic features. This, only formally distinguished, but treated as one whole for meritoric and structural reasons three-element sequence, formed in the order: continental shelf in geographic/physical approach - continental slope -foot of continental slope, forms a common topographic feature called the continental margin. However, the reconstruction of the continental shelf concept in international law is not limited only to the description and characteristic of the continental margin in the horizontal plane. Appropriately to the needs of the paper, and to the extent the competence of the Author allowed, the margin is also described in the vertical dimension, i.e. going deeper into the essence of the natural factor, contained basically in the geomorphologic and geologic structure of the main physiographic provinces forming the continental margin. Such a view of the above problem allowed to obtain knowledge of motivations and of various arguments forming the essence and reach of the external limit of the continental shelf in the Geneva Convention on the continental shelf of I958, called further in text the GC IV ( I958). However, most important was to show and prove the thesis that it was the natural factor that dictated and shaped stipulations in international law with respect to the discussed subject, and that this factor played an extremely important role in the evolution and development of the continental shelf concept during the period after CG IV ( I958) was adopted. The principle, contained in the ITJ ruling on the continental shelf of the North Sea that the continental shelf is a natural prolongation of the territory of a coastal state, the natural prolongation principle, was well substantiated by the geomorphology and geophysical characteristics of the continental margin. This principle was also of primary importance for the shaping of the concept of the continental shelf and of its external boundary in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, called below UNCLOS (1982).