Description
Gradually institutionalized after 1982, the Law of the Sea (LOS) government is a sector of its own with local rules, institutions and symbolic hierarchies within the United Nations system. LOS expertise is mainly located in the legal field, in which legal professionals (judges, lawyers, academics) build their symbolic status upon the UN LOS Convention. This creates contradictory situations in the UNGA LOS informal consultations: diplomats, whose majority come from generalist profiles, seem torn between symbolic recognition towards their specialized colleagues and loyalty to the generalist profile of their profession. How does LOS legal expertise hang together in this context? Drawing upon ethnographic research inside (2011-2015) and outside (2016) the UNGA, I unveil two types of “expertise transfer” that contributes to reproduce in-action the authority of “LOS science”. The first is located in the everyday practices of diplomats at the UN. The second is located in informal LOS summer schools where highly recognized law professionals (ITLOS judges, US academics) come together to teach LOS to neophyte public servants. The frontier between Law and International Politics are in constant tension.
