Continental shelf extension in Africa: Delay over political and future geopolitical challenges

In international law, the emergence of the notion of continental shelf goes back to the proclamation of the American President Harry Truman on September 28, 1945. Since that date, specific interests have been expressed by States regarding the prospects offered by the exploitation of the resources of the continental shelf. More specifically, they claim sovereign rights over this maritime space. Reflecting the dynamic changes permeating international society, the evolution of the legal concept of the continental shelf was first embodied in the Convention on the Continental Shelf adopted in Geneva in 1958, and then in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was adopted on 10 December 1982 and entered into force on 16 November 1994. While the 1958 Convention on the Continental Shelf established a single limit of the continental shelf, the Montego Bay Convention went further, by conceiving the latter also considering its geological and geomorphological extent and criteria. Described as the "Constitution of the Oceans", the Montego Bay Convention, in its article 766, established the legal regime governing the institution of the continental shelf, defining the jurisdiction and exercise of the rights of the coastal State in this maritime space, for the purpose of exploration and exploitation of natural resources.

Nowadays, the extension of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles is at the heart of the international agenda, further fueling the interests of States, particularly in Africa. In this context, the African portion of the continental shelf located beyond 200 nautical miles constitutes the central pivot of our legal and geopolitical reflection. The study is not only focused on the evolution of the fundamental doctrine on the continental shelf which has highlighted the possibilities of its extension, as well as on the geopolitical stakes inherent to the extension of the continental shelf. It also aims to explore the relationship between African States and their territory, in the context of the evolution of the law of the sea. At a time when territorial claims on the extension of the continental shelf are being expressed with greater fervor in Africa, this reflection reveals, with an original touch, the legal and geopolitical stakes that mark the extension of this space in the African continent. Indeed, the extension of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles raises many questions today, both because of its geological and geomorphological nature and because of its legal regime, which remains like that of the continental shelf extending up to 200 nautical miles from the baselines. The race for the natural resources of the extended African continental shelf is sowing, in the era of globalization and climate change, the germs of new territorial conflicts.

- What is the legal regime of the continental shelf?

- What are the key challenges of the continental shelf extension for the African coastal

States?

- Does the extension of the continental shelf in Africa sows the germs of new territorial

conflicts?

- What International community and African institutions can do?