This work provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the decision process at UNCLOS III and shows how the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea was determined by that process. As such, the work complements a large number of substantive legal commentaries on the convention by providing a detailed description and analysis of how the various components of the Convention were shaped, including the major and minor trade-offs, the impacts of different negotiating strategies, the impacts of interpersonal, interdelegation and intercoalition interactions, and the lessons UNCLOS III teaches us about the capacity of the international system to manage and regulate the use of a global common.