The Caspian Sea: political and legal aspects

Abstract

The collapse of the USSR, together with its econom ic and political repercussions, has also caused the emergence of the legal status of the Caspian Sea as a m ajor question in the Caspian region. The legal status issue has been on the agenda since the end of the 19*'’ century, when the Sea had two littoral states, Russia and Persia. Under the rule of Russia and Persia the Sea was legally accepted as an ‘enclosed sea’, but the navigational practice and resource m anagem ent were conducted as if it was a ‘boundary lake’. The legal status problem has become more intricate as the quantity of the neighboring states, thus the clashing interests over the Caspian Sea have increased. The debate over the legal status of the Sea has been so com plicated that it is hard to classify and characterize the argum ents of the parties of the debate. W hile a consensus on the division of the Caspian Sea has been reached, there are still many problem s concerning the regulations on the Caspian Sea, which need the cooperation and agreem ent of the littoral states, on both bilateral and m ultilateral levels. The border dispute among the littoral states of the Caspian Sea is one of the prospective threats to the cooperative atm osphere in the region, especially the one between A zerbaijan and Turkm enistan.