The ocean is a space of entangled sovereignties, resource struggles, and ecological interconnectedness. This course introduces students to the international legal frameworks that govern the world’s oceans, with a particular focus on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and its evolving interpretations. It also goes beyond doctrinal law to explore the intersections of formal and informal governance, customary tenure, environmental change, and community-based practices across coastal and archipelagic regions.

Focusing particularly on the Indian Ocean region, the course engages with contemporary governance challenges, including fisheries decline, climate adaptation, resource extraction, legal pluralism, and Indigenous knowledge systems. Through legal case analysis, ethnographic material, participatory methods, and political ecology, students will critically examine how competing visions of sovereignty, commons, and justice shape ocean governance.

The course is co-taught by two instructors with complementary expertise—one focusing on doctrinal and legal-institutional frameworks, and the other emphasising social science perspectives, grounded fieldwork, and community-led approaches.