Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is one of the main tools for implementing sustainable development on coastal zones. Yet its implementation is currently essentially done through projects, to the detriment of a normative approach. The project approach, and its primacy, is problematic: in addition to acknowledged intrinsic limits, its success in bringing change in the way coastal zones are managed is far from flattering, despite intense efforts.

This paper looks for a better balance between project and normative approaches. A retrospective and bibliographic analysis of the emergence of ICZM around the world allows us to clarify the issues and limits of the project approach. We show that the project approach refers to intellectual and administrative automatisms that are far from any strategic consideration on the most efficient way to implement ICZM.

We use the Mediterranean case to try to reduce this strategic deficit and give some recommendations in terms of desirable articulation between both approaches. ICZM is neither programmed nor decreed. In this context, we show that the project approach gains a serious momentum if it is articulated with a legal framework, be it existing or emerging. The conception of ICZM projects should mirror this demand: it is from this articulation that projects draw their meaning and legitimacy in a rationale of change in coastal zones management modes, and it is with respect to this contribution that they should be assessed.