You should think as legal counsel of a State contemplating declaring an EEZ which requests your advice as to the pros and cons of such declaration. You must examine the legal nature and main elements of the EEZ and the continental shelf under the law of the sea. You should refer to the common elements, such as the inclusion of the continental shelf regime in the EEZ, when a coastal State has declared an EEZ up to 200 nautical miles or the possibility of placing offshore installations in both the EEZ and the continental shelf. Your next section should look specifically at the differences that are apparent from the relevant provisions of UNCLOS as well as customary law: eg different sovereign rights in the EEZ and over the continental shelf or the fact that the EEZ must be declared by the coastal State, whereas the continental shelf need not. You should refer to cases such as Libya/Malta (ICJ, 1985), which refer also to role of the EEZ in the delimitation of the continental shelf.