The 2025 Declaration of the Milan Partnership on the Undersea Dimension: Selected Issues

On 5 March 2025, the Italian Branch of the International Law Association sponsored a national conference in Milan entitled ‘Law in an Extreme Space: The Undersea Dimension’. The event was also held under the auspices of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research, the Italian Ministry for Civil Protection and Maritime Policies, the Italian Navy, the National Biodiversity Future Center, the Milan Bar Association, the Guglielmo Marconi 150th National Committee, the Guglielmo Marconi Foundation, and the private industries Codevintec, C.a.b.i. Cattaneo, Drass, Fincantieri, Prysmian, Saipem, and Sparkle. The 2025 Declaration of the Milan Partnership on the Undersea Dimension (hereafter, the Milan Declaration), annexed to this contribution, is the result of those discussions. Its aim is to set out a forward-looking vision for the governance of activities beneath the ocean surface. Its signatories – jurists, naval officers, industry representatives, scientific experts, and undersea professionals – call for renewed international attention to the legal, environmental, and security implications of the rapidly expand-ing undersea dimension. The text of the Milan Declaration has been subsequently circulated by Italy among the member States of the Working Party on the Law of the Sea of the Council of the European Union (COMAR). This contribution does not aim to engage with the Milan Declaration in its entirety. Rather, it focuses on a selected set of legal issues raised by the document – matters that remain insufficiently explored in the contemporary debates on the law of the sea and the governance of the undersea dimension – and assesses their implications for the future development of international regulation.