Dr. Elizabeth Mendenhall recently published two new articles in a forthcoming issue of Marine Policy (vol. 99, January 2019), which are now available online. The first article, “Interpreting the law of the sea ‘regime of islands’: An opportunity for productive US leadership” is a commentary piece that describes an option for reshaping customary international law in a way that serves the interests of both the United States and the international community. This opportunity arises because of a problem in the law of the sea: the rules for claiming maritime territory, which are based on control of islands and coasts, were written before extensive island-building and global sea level rise. In other words, the law assumes that coastlines and islands stay in one place, but in the real world, they’re dynamic. The commentary describes the problems caused by this situation, and how the United States might intervene to create a new consensus that solves these problems.

Dr. Mendenhall’s second article in this issue, “The once and future treaty: Towards a new regime for biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction,” was co-authored with her collaborators from two U.S. universities and a Norwegian research institutions. The short communication comments on the research team’s experiences observing and conducting interviews at the first session of United Nations negotiations for a new international, legally binding instrument to govern ‘Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction’ (BBNJ). In general, the authors found that consensus over the core features of a new agreement was over-stated, and major disagreements persist about guiding principles and the relationship between any new treaty and existing institutions. The research team plans to attend the second session of BBNJ negotiations in April 2019.