Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Table of treaties and other international agreements
- Table of cases
- PART I General principles
- 1 Introduction: policing the oceans
- 2 Basic principles of maritime jurisdiction
- PART II Interdiction and maritime policing
- PART III The general law of interdiction
- Select bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW
1 - Introduction: policing the oceans
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Table of treaties and other international agreements
- Table of cases
- PART I General principles
- 1 Introduction: policing the oceans
- 2 Basic principles of maritime jurisdiction
- PART II Interdiction and maritime policing
- PART III The general law of interdiction
- Select bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW
Summary
The oceans are critical both to states' interests and to human prosperity, being a highway for commerce, a shared resource and a vector for threats to security. Ninety per cent of legal international trade moves by sea. The oceans are also used by smugglers transporting prohibited substances or irregular migrants. Certain trade by sea, not previously unlawful, is now prohibited as threatening international security, for example supplying a non-state actor with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or transferring such materiel to North Korea or Iran. States may also have strategic concerns regarding the possibility of certain states covertly acquiring WMD and seek to prevent such transfers by sea.
The oceans also feed humanity. Forty per cent of the protein consumed in the developing world is supplied by seafood. The vast resource represented by world fish stocks is difficult to govern. Illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing threatens coastal state economies and human food security. To reduce such activity some states have implemented at-sea boarding and inspection measures to monitor fishing practices.
Vessels at sea are also vulnerable to violence. Ships are robbed or hijacked with alarming frequency, raising concerns that such attacks could finance terrorism or result in seized vessels being used as ‘floating bombs’ to attack major ports. Individuals have also taken to the seas to circumvent state regulation, for example, the ‘pirate radio’ stations of 1960s Europe.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shipping Interdiction and the Law of the Sea , pp. 3 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009