| Original title | United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982: A Commentary |
|---|---|
| Subject | Law of the sea |
| Published | 1985-2011 |
Virginia Commentary is an informal title of a document, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982: A Commentary, providing an account of the negotiations and analysis of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea convention articles. This seven-volume work was published between 1985 and 2011 with the goal of better understanding of the lawmaking process at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III). The informal title is due to the University of Virginia School of Law, where, at the Center for Oceans Law and Policy, the commentary was put together.[1]
Virginia Commentary primarily concentrates on the history of the negotiations that led to the convention and is less of a commentary on the convention itself. It was published to a large extent before the convention went into force in 1994, the commentary thus does not contain a survey of case law or state practices; these can be found in a different book with a similar title, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: A Commentary (edited by Alexander Proelss), published in 2017.[2]
The Virginia Commentary is an important resource for interpretation of the Convention and its Implementation Agreement of 1994, commonly cited in both court filings and research papers on the subject.[3]