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Land-locked-ness: Geographic Handicap Landlocked States, the author notes, face serious disadvantages, due to their geography. This geography not only restricts their access to sea resources, but also limits their participation in international trade. Indeed, they have to totally rely on the transit countries to gain access to sea ports and international markets.
Because of this harsh reality, t he international community, throughout the past few decades, paid special attention to the situation of landlocked States. It not only gradually recognized but also partly addressed some of the constraints faced by them through a number of international legal and normative instruments. In the course of the past few decades, through the concerted efforts of landlocked as well as transit countries, the situation witnessed major improvement.
In this vein, the Transit Regime for Landlocked StatesInternational Law and Development Perspectives, by Kishor Uprety, is an attempt to review the evolutionary features of the legal regime applicable to landlocked States, with a view to demonstrating the nexus of international law and development. The book attempts to assess the strengths and limits of existing international law related to the free access of landlocked states to and from the sea by analyzing, in parallel, whether its provisions satisfy the economic demands of landlocked states, the majority of which are among the world’s poorest nations. In so doing, the book reviews the several principles of international law that dominated the discussions pertaining to the evolution of the rights of access, leading to several general and specific conventions, as well as treaty regimes emanating therefrom, and further examines the several restrictions imposed by some of those conventions, not all left unchallenged by landlocked states.
The methodology is straightforward. Followed by a detailed historical account of the legal as well as political relations amongst landlocked and transit countries, Part 1 of the book examines the problems that the landlocked countries have faced, along with their different economic, institutional and development-related challenges. Its Part 2 continues with the discussions on the doctrines and theories that have influenced the evolution of the legal regime applicable to landlocked States. The progress achieved by the international community over the decades in devising legal mechanisms to address the problems faced by these States is then discussed by the book in Pa rt 3. In this context, t he enforcement aspect of the right of access, in particular, the several administrative, institutional and technical mechanisms are also part of the discussions. The book further analyzes the bilateral treaties and agreements dealing with the question of transit in different continents that aim at facilitating transit between the landlocked States and their transit neighbors, and providing for specific regimes applicable to suit the specific geopolitical and socio-economic needs. From a purely international law angle, it analyzes the three major facets of public international law (customary law, treaty law, and state practice) and goes into some detail in the areas of law and fact, particularly by reviewing a sample of the bilateral arrangements amongst landlocked and transit States. Although the coverage of the agreements reviewed is worldwide, this Reviewer believes that the book could have been more beneficial for Nepalese readers had it provided some specific examples from the Nepalese practice, in particular the aspects of Indo-Nepalese transit relations, a perennial thorny issue.
Another interesting aspect covered by the book concerns “soft law”. On this front, it discusses the different international resolutions that have focused on cooperation among landlocked States, with the assistance of multilateral institutions. It briefly provides a commentary on the ongoing international initiatives and developments aimed at addressing the theoretical as well as practical problems faced by landlocked states. Actually, these developments, which have led to the creation of instruments with normative value, underscore the evolutionary nature of international law as well as the continual efforts associated with its development.
Finally the fourth Part of the book, the Conclusion, highlighting the positive achievements by the international community of a regime satisfactory to all, reviews the different multifaceted initiatives and approaches taken by the international community to solve the problems of the access of landlocked States.
This book, published by the World Bank, under its “Law, Justice and Development Series” promises to be useful for those -lawyers and non-lawyers alike- concerned with the transit regime of landlocked States, particularly with the perspectives of law and development.
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