The Southern Bluefin Tuna dispute: Hints of a world to come ... like it ornot

On August 4, 2000, an ad hoc Arbitral Tribunal decided that it lacked the j urisdiction to hear the merits of the Southern Bluefin Tuna dispute involvi ng Australia/ New Zealand and Japan. Several issues make the Southern Bluef in Tuna an extremely fertile case. This was the first time an arbitral trib unal was constituted under Part XV and Annex VII of UNCLOS. More importantl y, the dispute brings forward several issues that are likely to be increasi ngly present in international litigation in future decades. First, the applicants had a choice of judicial fora in which to initiate pr oceedings. As the number of international judicial bodies continues to expa nd, similar issues will likely take up the concerns of practitioners and sc holars alike. Second, the Southern Bluefin Tuna dispute is one of the few c ases in which arbitration has been initiated unilaterally. Third, the dispu te raised certain fundamental issues about the structure and institutional architecture of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS ). For instance, the Arbitral Tribunal considered whether the dispute settl ement procedure contained in Part XV of UNCLOS prevailed over dispute settl ement procedures in other sectorial and regional agreements, in which insta nces they prevailed, and to what extent. Finally, the Southern Bluefin Tuna dispute arose from the failure of a regional and sectorial fishing regime. It illustrates what happens when regimes fail to function and sheds some l ight on when and why they might crash.