INTERNATIONAL LAW, Sixth edition

600 international law
the question of equitable access to fish stocks for vulnerable fishing communities
needed to be considered. Since the principal resource in the area
was capelin, which was centred on the southern part of the area of overlapping
claims, the adoption of a median line would mean that Denmark
could not be assured of equitable access to the capelin. This was a further
reason for adjusting the median line towards the Norwegian island of Jan
Mayen. 237 However, there was no need to consider the presence of ice as
this did not materially affect access to fishery resources, 238 nor the limited
population of Jan Mayen, socio-economic factors or security matters in
the circumstances. 239
In discussing the variety of applicable principles, a distinction has traditionally
been drawn between opposite and adjacent states for the purposes
of delimitation. In the former case, the Court has noted that there
is less difficulty in applying the equidistance method than in the latter,
since the distorting effect of an individual geographical feature in the case
of adjacent states is more likely to result in an inequitable delimitation.
Accordingly, greater weight is to be placed upon equidistance in a delimitation
of the shelf between opposite states in the context of equitable
considerations, 240 than in the case of adjacent states where the range of
applicable equitable principles may be more extensive and the relative
importance of each particular principle less clear. Article 83 of the 1982
Convention, however, makes no distinction between delimitations on the
basis of whether the states are in an opposite or adjacent relationship. The
same need to achieve an equitable solution on the basis of international
law is all that is apparent and recent moves to a presumption in favour of
equidistance in the case of opposite coasts may well apply also to adjacent
states.
237 ICJ Reports, 1993, pp. 70–2; 99 ILR, pp. 438–40. But see the Separate Opinion of Judge
Schwebel, ICJ Reports, 1993, pp. 118–20; 99 ILR, pp. 486–8.
238 ICJ Reports, 1993, pp. 72–3; 99 ILR, pp. 440–1.
239 ICJ Reports, 1993, pp. 73–5; 99 ILR, pp. 441–3. But see the Separate Opinion of Judge
Oda, ICJ Reports, 1993, pp. 114–17; 99 ILR, pp. 482–5. Note also the discussion of equity
in such situations in the Separate Opinion of Judge Weeramantry, ICJ Reports, 1993, pp.
211 ff.; 99 ILR, pp. 579 ff.
240 See North Sea Continental Shelf cases, ICJ Reports, 1969, pp. 3, 36–7; 41 ILR, pp. 29, 65;
the Anglo-French Continental Shelf case, Cmnd 7438, pp. 58–9; 54 ILR, p. 65; the Tunisia–
Libya Continental Shelf case, ICJ Reports, 1982, pp. 18, 88; 67 ILR, pp. 4, 81; the Gulf of
Maine case, ICJ Reports, 1984, pp. 246, 325; 71 ILR, p. 74, and the Jan Mayen case, ICJ
Reports, 1993, p. 37; 99 ILR, p. 395. See also article 6 of the Continental Shelf Convention,
1958.