The Delimitation of the Caspian Sea, with emphasis on the Aktau Convention, 2018

The Caspian Sea, as the largest lake in the world, has always been one of the most important regions of the world. Technological advances and, as a result, increasing coastal stateschr('39') access to its living and non-living resources have added to its economic and strategic importance. With the collapse of the Soviet :union: and the increase in the number of Caspian coastal states from two countries to five, the issue of access to the Caspian Sea and the exploitation of its existing resources has taken on new dimensions. Today, the most important issue in the Caspian Sea is the legal regime that governs it and the issue of delimitation that precedes other issues. The present article uses descriptive-analytical and library-based approaches to examine developments in the legal regime of the Caspian Sea from the 1921 and 1940 conventions to the most recent one, the 2018 Actau Convention. Given the relatively different areas defined by the Actu Convention in relation to the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and some terms and terminology generally used, the present article is concerned with international jurisprudence and principles of the law of the sea. It has, to some extent, provided analysis for their explanation.