The stakes were high when, from 1973 to 1982, delegates at the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) shaped the U.N. Convention on Law of the Sea of 1982 & ultimately influenced a large-scale transformation of the world ocean regime & the formulation of global diplomacy in the eighties. Global Ocean Politics offers a comprehensive description & analysis of the decision-making process at UNCLOS III & shows how that process determined the 1982 Convention. As such, the work complements a large number of substantive legal commentaries on the Convention by providing a detailed description & analysis of the shaping of its various components, including the major & minor trade-offs; the impacts of different negotiating strategies; & the effects of interpersonal, interdelegation, & intercoalition interactions. The work also gives the reader a broader perspective, examining the lessons UNCLOS III teaches us about the capacity of the international system to manage & regulate the use of a global common.