Legal regime about filling of the coasts

Coasts have always been attractive for humankind throughout the history. Today, it is known that nearly half of the population of the world lives on coasts and this ratio increases day by day. Our country, the Republic of Turkey, has approximately 8300 km coast line which is considerably long part of the total 312.000 km coast line of the world. Therefore, it is considered to be a very strategic position in international arena, and can also be regarded as a significant position at sea and coasts.The wrong infrastructure on coasts and coastal areas damages natural, cultural and biological movements in terms of conformation and immigration. During the twenties century, the governments were charged with new duties and responsibilities like ensuring a healthy and progressive lives for their citizens and also preserving the coastal areas and cultural assets. These steps are acted in accordance with legislations and regulations.In this study, one of the fundamental issue is to examine filling the coastal areas and statute of coast and coastal area in Turkish legislation and jurisprudence. The main emphasis of the discussion is that coastal areas are public goods and they should be used for public interest. In our country there are a lot of official associations that law empowers each institution differently. In the sense that, as each institution implements the rule of law in accordance with their activity, it turns out to be a chaotic situation afterwards. In order to highlight the problems that can be encountered in practice, specific judicial decisions have been investigated. Also present laws have been criticized and proposed and propositions have been offered some possible solutions in conclusion.Key words: Coast, coastal area, filling the coast, official associations.