according the information i provide,give me an abstract :The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and the only world court with universal jurisdiction.It was established in 1945 under the UN Charter to settle disputes between states and issue advisory opinions.Before the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), most maritime law cases were decided by international courts and Permanent Tribunals.There is no doubt that they have played an important role in dealing with ocean affairs and have made great contributions to the law of the sea.Article 287 of Part XV of the 1982 Convention covers four procedures for the settlement of disputes concerning the interpretation and application of the Convention: the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the Arbitral Tribunal in Annex VII and the Special Tribunal in Annex VIII, among which the ITLOS is a new permanent international judicial institution established in 1996 pursuant to Annex VI to the Convention.The Convention, while granting ITLOS exclusive jurisdiction over interim measures and prompt discharge, provides for the implied compulsory jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal in Annex VII.When the ITLOS was established, there was particular concern that the ITLOS would monopolize the market in law of the sea jurisprudence, separate it from the broader context of international law, and thus undermine the overall context of international law, and that the ITLOS would be a judicial competitor to the ICJ and an unnecessary and unhelpful complement to the proliferation of international tribunals.What worries critics is that the law of the sea may be fragmented, both in substance and procedure.
Article 288 of the Convention, which is the basis for the jurisdiction of dispute settlement procedures within the framework of the Convention, provides that the four bodies referred to in article 287 have jurisdiction over any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention and related agreements.Article 287 of the Convention does not specify the priority of jurisdiction over individual disputes, and strictly speaking, the choice of dispute settlement procedures ultimately depends on the wishes of the parties.As a result, there is competition among UNCLOS dispute settlement procedures to attract law of the sea cases, as well as competition between UNCLOS dispute settlement procedures and external judicial bodies competent to hear law of the sea cases, in particular the International Court of Justice.Although the International Court of Justice is included in the dispute settlement section of the Convention, its jurisdiction to accept cases is not based solely on Part XV, section 2, of the Convention, and cases usually involve the interpretation and application of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The increase in the number of international courts and tribunals chosen by Parties in matters relating to the law of the sea and the arbitrary extension of the jurisdiction of some jurisdictions as a result of competition between international courts and tribunals have not only given rise to problems of coordination and conflict among these different courts and tribunals, but the plethora of dispute settlement bodies has also led to different interpretations of the Convention and other relevant applicable law,This increases the risk of fragmentation of the law of the sea, including the Convention.Therefore, cooperation between the International Court of Justice and the Tribunal becomes particularly important. Although there is some cooperation between the International Court of Justice and the Tribunal at present, there are still some shortcomings in the existing cooperation mode, such as: only partial extracts of passages favorable to one's own reasoning when invoking precedents.In this case, it is necessary to explore new ways of cooperation, such as the development of a uniform set of standards or methods in dealing with some cases of the law of the sea.Different courts can build reputations for expertise in different types of cases, and courts with specific expertise may hear all cases of the same type so that inconsistent rulings do not arise.The ITLOS and Annex VII Tribunals to the Convention may focus on cases concerning the interpretation and application of the provisions of the Convention, while the ICJ focuses on the interpretation and application of customary law rules in the field of general international law and the law of the sea.Of course, the feasibility of these new ways of cooperation still needs to be further verified.In the field of public international law, because international jurists generally follow a standard approach to treaty interpretation (which may lead them to find many Convention rules fairly certain), and because they may rely on the decisions of other tribunals, the interpretation of many rules may not differ significantly from court to court.Whether the same is true of courts or tribunals under the law of the sea requires further study.