MSR: the introduction

MARINE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND THE LAW OF THE SEA

Introduction
Some experts claim that the Earth is a Planet of Water. This is because two-thirds of the earth's surface is covered by global oceans. The global ocean is one of the resources, which promises benefits to the life of mankind. This also represents a massive amount of interdisciplinary scientific information such as biology, chemistry, geology and physics. The availability of potential scientific information and the increase of needs of living resources motivate people to conduct marine scientific research.
While marine scientific research has to be provided freedom to maximize its results for the wealth of people, the rapid development of marine scientific research needs an increasing regulation, to ensure the research is done properly (Soon, 1982). The second statement in these two opposite tendencies leads to the need of regulations concerning marine scientific research. This particular matter is governed by the United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) especially Part XIII.
This paper intends to discuss marine scientific research in relation to the Law of the Sea. The scope will include the principle of marine scientific research; legal regime of marine scientific research, Part XIII of LOSC, in particular; trend in marine scientific research nowadays; the use of technology in marine scientific research; and finally discussion about the relationship between LOSC and marine scientific research. In the last scope, this paper will discuss the effects of LOSC to marine scientific research and vise versa; impact of technology in marine scientific research related to LOSC; issue of copyrights concerning the data, samples and results of marine scientific research; and finally a closing remarks whether marine scientific research nowadays remains on “the track” suggested by LOSC.