Sixth Committee (Legal): Pushing Baselines [Intermediate]

International law draws its authority from lines, on maps, along coasts, between what a state may claim and what it may not. Those lines are now pushed from both ends, redrawn by nations that reject the rulings they lose and erased by seas that swallow the land beneath them. This committee asks delegates to decide what a baseline, a border, and a binding judgment are worth when the world stops respecting them.

Subtopic A: Contested Islands and the Limits of Maritime Law
July 2026 marks 10 years since the South China Sea Arbitral Award, which found no legal basis for historic rights beyond UNCLOS, yet China still calls it null and void. Other disputes never reach a tribunal; Korea holds Liancourt Rocks while Japan campaigns on retaking them, and Russia, Canada, and Denmark file overlapping Arctic shelf claims over one ridge. Delegates should weigh compulsory jurisdiction vs. state consent, rock vs. island, binding rulings vs. no enforcement, and ask what a ruling is worth when the loser simply declines it.

Subtopic B: Sea-Level Rise and the Continuity of Statehood
International law assumes a state has territory, and no one has answered what happens when the sea takes it. Pacific Islands Forum leaders and AOSIS insist their maritime zones and statehood stand regardless of the water, and the ILC considered whether baselines are ambulatory, retreating with the coast and dragging the EEZ inland, or stay fixed forever, splitting small island states against maritime powers eyeing redrawn zones. Delegates should preserve entitlements and statehood, address displaced populations, and ask whether a state can exist once there is nowhere left to stand.