WHEREAS the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Russian Federation are parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (the “Convention”).

WHEREAS Article 286 of the Convention provides that “[s]ubject to section 3, any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention shall, where no settlement has been reached by recourse to section 1, be submitted at the request of any party to the dispute to the court or tribunal having jurisdiction under this section”;

WHEREAS upon its ratification of the Convention on 28 June 1996, the Netherlands declared, “having regard to article 287 of the Convention, [that] it accepts the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in the settlement of disputes concerning the interpretation and application of the Convention with States Parties to the Convention which have likewise accepted the said jurisdiction”;

WHEREAS upon signature of the Convention on 10 December 1982, “[t]he Union of Soviet Socialist Republics declares that, under Article 287 of the [Convention], it chooses an arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII as the basic means for the settlement of disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention”;