North Sea Continental Shelf Cases (Federal Republic of Germany/Denmark and Netherlands) 1969 I.C.J. 3 (Feb 20) Article 6 of the Convention on the Continental Shelf (516 U.S.T.S. 205 (1958)) says that if there are two countries separated by a sea, the boundary between then should be calculated as the point equidistant from both coastlines. This is known as the equidistance principle. It is important to know where the boundary is because a country can drill for oil in the seabed within their territory. The North Sea is surrounded by Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark. There is lots of oil right near the middle. Germany felt that they were getting a bad deal because their coastline was concave, while Denmark and the Netherlands had convex coastlines (look at a map). This meant that based on the equidistance principle, they would get less seabed than they would get if the coastlines were all straight. They went to the International Court of Justice and asked for a ruling on how to draw the boundary. Denmark and the Netherlands argued that the equidistance principle was not only codified in the Convention of the Continental Shelf, but that it was already 'crystallized' into customary international law. The ICJ found that the boundary should be redrawn on the basis of equitable principles. The ICJ agreed that the equidistance principle gives a country with a convex coastline more seabed than what a country with a concave coastline would receive. The ICJ found that the equidistance principle was still relatively new, and so it wasn't exactly customary international law just yet. In addition, there is a clause in Article 6 that allows for different boundary lines to be drawn when "justified by special circumstances." The ICJ told the parties to go back and work out a boundary that was equitable to everybody. Basically, this case said that countries didn't need to follow the equidistance principle if it was inequitable. Later, this theory of equity was codified in Article 83 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea (1833 U.N.T.S. 3 (1982)),