The Right of Access to Port and the Impact of Historic Fishing Rights

DILA’s 2020 International Conference theme, “Reshaping International Law in the Asian Century”, does not necessitate the challenging or subversion of established norms. Reshaping may equally occur by reflecting on overlapping fragments of international law that were previously only analyzed in silos. This article identifies a previously overlooked contribution to international law by taking historic fishing rights, a predominantly regional or bilateral custom, and assessing the extent to which it refines the lack of customary law rights for vessels to access foreign ports, an established global norm of international law. This article therefore first proceeds with section 2 charting the lack