An Exploratory Empirical Outlook on the Authority of Annex VII Arbitral Tribunals

Abstract

This article studies perceptions of the authority of arbitral tribunals constituted under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Authority is understood as co-extensive with the notion of legitimacy. The focus here is not on normative legitimacy, the doctrinal study of which can only take one so far in understanding matters of authority. Instead, empirical research methods are used to study the perceived authority of Annex VII arbitral tribunals within the relevant constituency, known as sociological legitimacy. The findings are those of an exploratory study, considering that the data was collected from a small group of individuals. Further research could focus on collecting the same or similar data from a larger group, so as to obtain a more nuanced outlook on the authority of Annex VII arbitral tribunals.