Evaluation of Legal Regimes and Strategic Action Model of Iran in the Caspian Sea(National Interests, Regional Control, Territorial Distribution, and Multilateral Cooperation)

The Caspian Sea, with an area of 424300 and 438690 square kilometers, is the world's largest lake. However, the sea is not included in the Convention on the Law of the Sea and is subject to a special legal regime.The emergence of four contenders from the newly independent states of the Soviet Union, the increase of coastal states of the Caspian Sea from two to five countries (Iran, the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan), the emergence of consortia and trans regional powers to invest in oil and gas extraction in the region, the efforts of the emerging countries to have a greater share than that of the former Soviet Union established in the 1921 and 1940 Contracts between Iran and the former Soviet Union were the factors which necessitate the establishment of a legal regime focusing on issues such as flight over sea, shipping regime, fishing, marine pollution, an appropriate mechanism for the sharing of oil resources, etc. These factors also necessitate the existence of a strategic action model which seeks to preserve the national interests, regional control, territorial distribution, and multilateral cooperation. The present study aims to evaluate the legal regimes established for this lake (August 12, 2018) and identify the strategic action model of Iran in the Caspian Sea. The pursuit of Iran's right to take advantage of the sea interests will be our most important consideration during this evaluation.