The Legal Regime of the Caspian Sea, Past, Present and the Future: From the Position of State Succession to the Conclusion of the 2018 Aktau Convention (Part two: Conclusion of the Aktau Convention)

Participation in the drafting of the Aktau Convention, and especially its signature by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while implicitly acknowledging the weakness of the position of “common and equal legal regime”, is a realistic move in terms of international law and relations.The Aktau Convention has partly adopted the concepts of the International Law of the Sea in regulating the legal regime of the Caspian Sea, including the concepts of territorial waters, fishing area and the baseline, but at the same time has its own innovations and characteristics in other areas, such as a dual regime governing surface waters and the division of the seabed. There are also unresolved issues and potential for disagreement.The Interpretive Declaration issued by the then-Iranian Foreign Minister, issued on the occasion of the signing of the Convention on the Legal Regime of the Caspian Sea, which stated, "the Islamic Republic of Iran recalls and notes the relevant provisions of the 1921 Agreement, as well as the 1940 Agreement on Trade and Navigation between Iran and the Soviet Union", raises the following questions: Is the move in reminding the treaties of 1921 and 1940 inconsistent with the signing of the Aktau Convention? Will the Iranian government ratify the Aktau Convention in the near future? Will the Iranian government not immediately be in the position of proclaiming and using the 15-mile territorial waters and the 10-mile fishing area?