Definitions
Concavity in coastlines refers to an inward curvature, as in the case of a bay, gulf, or bight. Prominent examples include the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Guinea, or the Bay of Biscay, as opposed to convexity, like in the case of a landmass protruding into the sea, like in the case of North-West Africa’s Atlantic coast between Ghana and Morocco, or South America’s Pacific coast between Colombia and Peru.
Equity is a concept that can be traced back to Roman Law (Francioni 2020) and that entered international law via English law (although it has long been contrasted with law in the narrow sense of the term). The term, which is notoriously vague (see Francioni 2020), describes an attempt to reach a fair result, even if doing so necessitates going beyond the strict confines of law. Equity can play a role in international law due to the ability of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to make decisions ex aequo et bono. This capacity, available under Article 38 (2) of the...
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Kirchner, S. (2023). Delimitation and Coastline Concavity in International Law. In: Gray, K.W. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Territorial Rights. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68846-6_93-1
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