Equity versus legality in the eastern mediterranean: the Mavi Vatan doctrine and turkey’s objection of United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea (UNCLOS)

Abstract

Since the 2010s, following the discovery of hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean, energy disputes in the region have intensified, rekindling tensions between Turkey and its neighbors, Greece and Cyprus, and bringing to light divergences regarding the application of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
This article therefore seeks to analyze how the Blue Homeland Doctrine (Mavi Vatan), articulated alongside the Neo-Ottoman Doctrine and the Energy Security Strategy presented by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a tool of power projection, underpins the revisionism characteristic of Erdoğan’s government. Situated within the fields of Geopolitics and International Security, the article adopts a qualitative approach, based on specialized literature review and documentary analysis of international treaties. It argues that the Turkish position constitutes a structured contestation of the legal order established by UNCLOS (1982), going beyond a merely expansionist naval strategy. In this context, Turkey has invoked the Principle of Equity in response to the application of international law as established by the maritime convention. The conclusion is that the situation reveals deep tensions between international legality, historical perceptions of territorial injustice, and the reconfiguration of the regional balance of power, transcending disputes over energy resources.