THE LEGAL STATUS OF OFFSHORE DEEPWATER PORTS: ON THE PROJECT OF CONSTRUCTION OF A DEEPWATER PORT IN THE GULF OF GDANSK

The demand for and shortage of petroleum caused a serious turmoil in the 1970s. Under this climate, the necessity to transport petroleum to the Western Countries efficiently brought forward the construction of huge tankers. But, then a different kind of problem had come to being, which was the accommodation of these enormous vehicles in the ports. In those days, there were no sufficient ports that could host vehicles of these size in the industrialized states. Thus, deepwater port projects had been developed in order to host these gigantic vehicles of the sea. Today, this trend continues and is not limited merely to the tankers; for example, container ships of gigantic proportions have been built because of these aforementioned enterprises. Now more than ever, the need to build deepwater ports is crucial. In this short article the legal status of the offshore deepwater ports will be dealt with, by situating the offshore deepwater port project of Gdansk under scrutiny. Henceforth with the article will be arranged as follows: definitions of ports, roadsteads, and deepwater ports respectively; the importance of the deepwater ports; the planed and already built projects of deepwater ports; the legal status of the deepwater ports in international law of the sea; the brief assessment of said deepwater port project that will be built in the Gulf of Gdansk, and conclusions