The legal dispute around the status of the Caspian Sea: an international law and economic perspective

From Russian-Iranian management to the bilateral agreements of the early 1990s, the Caspian water basin has been the subject of a twenty-year dispute regarding the characterization of its legal status as a lake or sea. If since the dissolution of the Soviet Union there have been conflicting visions regarding the division of the respective Exclusive Economic Zones and the exploitation of the rich hydrocarbon deposits of the seabed, the signature of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea in 2018 has put an end to a unidirectional regulatory trend, resolving – albeit only partially – the problem of the delimitation of areas of exclusive sovereignty. However, numerous legal and economic issues between the riparian States still remain open. Moved by often incompatible interests and aspirations, the competition between coastal states mainly affects the implementation of new energy routes for the transport of Central Asian gas to Europe through the Caucasus, which is potentially capable of compromising Russian dominance in the energy field.