Adjudication of the Maritime Boundary in the Gulf of Maine
On March 29, 1979 Canada and the United States signed a treaty to submit their dispute over the maritime boundary in the Gulf of Maine to binding settlement. The event is worthy of note not only because it is the first occasion since the North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Arbitration, in 1910, that the two countries have submitted a dispute over their offshore jurisdiction to third party settlement but also because it constitutes the first reference by any state of a question to a chamber of the International Court of Justice. However, this reference to the Court is only conditional and the parties have provided for the possible removal of the case from the Court and for its submission to an ad hoc court of arbitration. Thus, as well as providing a further opportunity for an international tribunal to consider the law relating to the delimitation of maritime boundaries, the treaty raises some interesting questions about recourse to a chamber of the International Court of Justice.