Category Archives: The Law of the Sea

From A to EEZ

Ecopiracy in the Contiguous Zone

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It’s been a relatively exciting week for international law of the sea. Not only has Iran been demonstrating the importance of territorial seas, why straight baseline measurements matter and when they are appropriate, and the differences between transit and innocent passage, but now three Australians are helping to illustrate the concept of contiguous zones, thanks to their unauthorized boarding of a Japanese whaling support ship:

The so-called “Sea Shepherd” activists — Geoffrey Tuxworth, Simon Peterffy and Glen Pendlebury — boarded the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru II early Sunday morning off the southwest coast of western Australia.

….

The three men are members of an Australian environmental organization called Forest Rescue Australia and their mission was designed to prevent the Japanese whaler from tailing an anti-whaling flagship belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Because this all took place about 16 miles off of the Australian coast, the men boarded the ship and were apprehended by the Japanese vessel within Australia’s contiguous zone. There now seems to be a dispute between the Sea Shepherd organization and the Australian government over the significance of this fact — with the Sea Shepherds believing, while the Australian government is stuck in the position of awkwardly noting that the three men who boarded the vessel are subject only to Japanese laws.

Although the Australian government did eventually work through diplomatic channels to arrange for the release of the three activists, its position was that Australia had no particular claims to jurisdiction over the incident, beyond the fact it involved Australian citizens:

[Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon] said consular officials were attempting to contact the men, and the Government’s priority was to ensure their safety and well-being, and return to Australia.
“It is a difficult situation. This incident happened outside our territorial waters, in our exclusive economic zone,” she said.
“But that doesn’t give us rights for Australian law to automatically apply.
“In fact, our advice is that Japanese law will apply because a Japanese boat is the one that’s been boarded.”

The Sea Shepherds do not agree with the Gillard Government’s view:

Capt [Paul] Watson said he had not expected the men to be taken to Japan and charged.

“Considering it was within the 24 miles contiguous zone, which is where the Australian immigration and Customs has absolute authority, we didn’t think the Australian government would allow the Japanese to take Australian citizens out of that area.”

He accused Attorney-General Nicola Roxon of “not doing her homework”, adding the vessel was only 16 miles off the beach.

“This is not some ordinary boat that was boarded, this is a criminal boat supporting a criminal operation.”

Unfortunately for the Sea Shepherds, however, their interpretation of international law is a bit misguided. The contiguous zone’s actual significance is pretty negligible in most contexts, and completely negligible here. The contiguous zone is the band of ocean territory just beyond a nation’s territorial waters, and overlapping with its EEZ. States are permitted to extend this zone up to 24 miles from their coast; this means, in the typical circumstance, a nation’s contiguous zone is a 12 mile band that begins 12 miles out at sea, where the state’s territorial sea ends.

Under Article 33 of UNCLOS,

1. In a zone contiguous to its territorial sea, described as the contiguous zone, the coastal State may exercise the control necessary to:

(a) prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea;

(b) punish infringement of the above laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea.

2. The contiguous zone may not extend beyond 24 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

And that is pretty much the extent of the contiguous zone’s importance, when it comes to a coastal state’s jurisdiction over foreign ships. Moreover, as the Shonan Maru II is not itself a whaling ship or a research ship — it’s basically a bodyguard for the whaling ships, engaged in counter-harassment measures against the Sea Shepherds — it was not even taking any actions which could have subjected it to Australian regulations at the time the Forest Rescue men boarded it. As for Australian criminal laws (even presuming that the Japanese could possibly have committed any violations), such laws are only enforceable in the contiguous zone to the extent that the enforcement was related to violations that occurred or were about to occur within Australia’s territorial sea. Here, all of the events concerned took place outside of territorial waters, and so Australia’s extended enforcement jurisdiction is inapplicable.

As such, if any criminal acts occurred with regard to the boarding of the Shonan Maru, the crimes were probably committed by the Forest Rescue activists rather than the Japanese whalers. In fact, an argument can even be made that, by forcibly boarding a Japanese vessel outside of Australian territorial waters with the intent of detaining it, or at least of diverting its course, the activists were engaging in an act of piracy, pursuant to UNCLOS Article 101. Although the Japanese whalers are hardly innocent when it comes to breaches of international law, in this case, it is the Sea Shepherds that are in the wrong.

-Susan

Is the Strait of Hormuz Governed by Treaty or by Customary International Law?

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The Strait of Hormuz, as news articles in recent weeks have repeatedly stressed, is kind of a big deal when it comes to the global oil trade. The Strait, which is a mere 20 miles across at its narrowest point, connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman — and also connects the rest of the world with 40% of its daily oil tanker traffic.

Which is why Iran’s recently renewed threats to close down trade through the Strait of Hormuz are risky for all concerned. Risky for the rest of the world, because any disruption would contain a severe economic toll. And risky for Iran, because if it ever actually did attempt to shut down the Strait, it would intensely piss off literally the entire world. So, while Iran periodically makes noises about taking such a move, the odds of it actually carrying out on its threats are minimal. Nevertheless, given the costs involved, the risk, however small, is taken extremely seriously by the rest of the world.

But ignoring the reality of the situation for a moment, and pretending as if international law actually possessed the power to effect state’s actions in the Gulf, would Iran actually have the legal right to carry out any of its threats?

For once, international law has a straightforward answer: no. Any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz would be unambiguously illegal; the shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz, as laid out by the International Maritime Organization, lay within the territorial sea of Oman. Although the 12-mile territorial seas of Iran and Oman overlap at the narrowest points of the Strait, the deepest waters — and thus the shipping channels — lay to the south, within Oman’s territorial waters. As such, any military action by Iran to shut down shipping through Hormuz would inevitably impinge on Oman’s sovereign rights.

But Iran’s legal rights over the Strait of Hormuz vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and ignoring Oman’s sovereignty concerns, are a slightly more complicated question, although even there Iran’s claims are tenuous. The precise extent of Iran’s legal authority, however, differs based upon whether one applies the doctrine of innocent passage or transit passage to the Strait.

Both doctrines concern the passage of ships (as well as planes) through a nation’s territorial sea, which extends up to 12 miles from a state’s coast. The doctrine of innocent passage, which bears a greater claim to customary international law status, applies throughout all the territorial seas of the world. The concept of transit passage, in contrast, applies solely to those sections of territorial seas provide an exclusive link between two larger bodies of waters — i.e., straits.

The right of innocent passage, laid out in Articles 17 – 26 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”), protects the right of ships in transit to pass through another nation’s territorial sea, subject to certain regulations that may be imposed by the sovereign. Passage is considered innocent “so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State.” Innocent passage, however, can be subject to certain conditions imposed by the sovereign state, and may in fact be suspended temporarily in times of emergency.

In contrast, transit passage, which is regulated by Articles 37 – 44 of UNCLOS, is nonsuspendable, and not limited to innocent passage. The conditions that may be imposed by sovereign states are limited, and not subject to any real teeth. So long as a ship is not engaged in any nontransit activities and complying with certain traffic and safety measures, coastal States must permit ships to pass through their territorial seas.

So if the Strait of Hormuz is governed by transit passage, Iran’s legal ability to take any action to impede transport through the strait, even against an unfriendly foreign nation’s warships, is more or less nil. If, on the other hand, the regime of innocent passage applies, Iran has a fair bit more wiggle room to work with. Particularly in a situation where hostilities are shading towards war and the use of force, where a coastal state’s territorial waters governed by a regime of innocent passage, that state has a non-negligible claim to a right to enforce extensive regulatory control over the area, up to and including an ongoing suspension of all transit rights.

The question then is whether the Strait of Hormuz is subject to transit passage or not. Textually, it would seem clear that the Strait of Hormuz falls with Article 37’s scope, as it is a “strait[] which [is] used for international navigation between one part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone and another part of the high seas or an exclusive economic zone.” Thus, under UNCLOS’s text, a strait like the Strait of Hormuz — which connects the Persian Gulf’s EEZ to the Strait of Oman’s EEZ, as well as the high seas beyond — is subject to transit passage. So why doesn’t that settle the question for good as to what transit regime applies here?

Well, for one, neither the U.S. nor Iran have ever actually gotten around to ratifying UNCLOS. Since neither state has ever entered the treaty, its terms can only apply if the terms are also obligatory under customary international law. And there, opinions differ, with no few authorities holding that the general right of transit passage has yet to be established outside of treaty-conferred obligations.

On the other side of that argument is the United States, which, despite its somewhat contentious and complicated relationship with UNCLOS, has long held that the bulk of UNCLOS’s provisions are merely a codification of customary international law. This includes UNCLOS’s provisions regarding transit passage, as U.S. authorities have repeatedly asserted these norms to be a component of CIL:

…the United States…particularly rejects the assertions that the…right of transit passage through straits used for international navigation, as articulated in the [LOS] Convention, are contractual rights and not codification of existing customs or established usage. The regimes of…transit passage, as reflected in the Convention, are clearly based on customary practice of long standing and reflects the balance of rights and interests among all States, regardless of whether they have signed or ratified the Convention… (Diplomatic Note of August 17, 1987, to the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria (intermediary for Iran)).

And,

…the regime [of transit passage] applies not only in or over the waters overlapped by territorial seas but also throughout the strait and in its approaches, including areas of the territorial sea that are overlapped. The Strait of Hormuz provides a case in point: although the area of overlap of the territorial seas of Iran and Oman is relatively small, the regime of transit passage applies throughout the strait as well as in its approaches including areas of the Omani and Iranian territorial seas not overlapped by the other. (Navy JAG, telegram 061630Z June 1998).

In contrast, Iran has consistently maintained the opposite view, holding that transit passage only exists among states that have agreed to submit to that regime via ratification of an international agreement. Although Iran has not ratified UNCLOS, it has signed the convention, and with its signature it submitted the following declaration:

Notwithstanding the intended character of the Convention being one of general application and of law making nature, certain of its provisions are merely product of quid pro quo which do not necessarily purport to codify the existing customs or established usage (practice) regarded as having an obligatory character. Therefore, it seems natural and in harmony with article 34 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, that only states parties to the Law of the Sea Convention shall be entitled to benefit from the contractual rights created therein.

In other words, Iran viewed Article 38 of UNCLOS, concerning the right of transit passage through straits used for international navigation, to be an exclusively treaty-based obligation, and not one of customary international law. As Iran never got around to ratifying UNCLOS, the implication would be that Iran does not in fact believe itself to have acceded to any such treaty obligation. This position has been confirmed by numerous assertions by Iranian officials in the decades prior to and since UNCLOS’s entry into force.

Iran is not alone in this belief about transit passage’s status under international law, either. Oman, motivated by a similar interest in the Strait of Hormuz, also filed a declaration along with both its signature to and ratification of UNCLOS, which questioned the CIL status of transit passage, and also suggested that Oman did not intend to adopt the obligations of transit passage conferred by treaty, either. Its ratification statement indicated that it only recognized and agreed to compliance with provisions concerning the regime of innocent passage — and not that of transit passage. As such, Oman’s ratification was subject to the condition that “innocent passage is guaranteed to warships through Omani territorial waters, subject to prior permission.”

Although these declarations have never actually been enforced or acted upon by either Oman or Iran, making the bulk of state practice with regards to the Strait of Hormuz to be in conformity with the existence of transit passage through the Strait, it does not appear that either coastal state believes itself to be legally bound by a customary international law of transit passage, either. Moreover, state practice and opinio juris elsewhere in the world likewise fails to unambiguously confirm the existence of a customary international law of transit passage. As such, it cannot be automatically assumed that Iran does not possess a right to limit transit through the Strait of Hormuz, at least to the extent permitted by the regime of innocent passage.

While the practical effect of transit passage’s precise status under international law will likely (definitely) be minimal in shaping events in the Persian Gulf in the days and weeks to come, parties on both sides of the dispute will be likely to invoke the application of international law in their rhetoric, as they seek to imbue their military actions with the color of law. Still, as the Strait of Hormuz does not belong to Iran alone, and Iran’s sovereign claims over the Strait are limited by Oman’s own claims to its territorial seas, any action taken by Iran to close the entirety of the Strait will necessarily be an act of force prohibited by the UN Charter, and unquestionably a violation of international law.

-Susan

Here, Have Some More Pirates — Part I

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Sadly, with regards to the hijacking of the Arctic Sea, as of yet there does not appear to be a factual basis for any truly interesting questions of jurisdiction, despite the proliferation of nations involved with strong jurisdictional claims over some or all of the hijacking. Russia has asserted full jurisdiction over the incident, and at the moment it does not appear any other nations are objecting. The hijackers, now in Moscow, have been charged under the Russian criminal code for piracy and kidnapping:

“On the strength of the gathered evidence, seven captors have been charged with complicity in the commission of the crimes covered by Article 227, Part 3 and Article 126, Item “a”, Part 3 (piracy and kidnapping committed with the use violence and arms by organized group). The eighth suspect has been charged with masterminding the above crimes,” Markin said.

However, it looks as if the hijackers themselves have been making noises about the propriety of Russian jurisdiction over them, both under international law and domestic Russian law:

According to Russian media, hijacking suspects say their case should be heard not in Russia but in Malta, or Sweden – in whose Baltic Sea waters the alleged hijacking occurred. But Bastrykin stressed that Russia now has jurisdiction over the ship and the suspects.

“We have the full legal right to conduct investigative activities with both the ship and its crew,” he was quoted as saying.

Egons Rusanovs, a lawyer at Rusanovs and Partners, says:

Russia has no relation to the current preliminary investigation into this case. This fact contradicts concrete norms of international law, in particular, the convention on maritime law adopted in 1982. This case should be under jurisdiction of either Malta or Sweden.

Dmitry Pronin, a lawyer who represents detained Latvian citizen Vitalij Lepin, believes that “this arrest is illegal and it’s without ground, because in accordance with the Russian Criminal Code, the type of punishment should be decided within 48 hours after the factual detention. In this case it took four days to specify the preventive punishment.”

It’s hard to know if there’s any weight to the hijacker’s arguments without more than that, but I’m highly skeptical about their chances of prevailing on that front. Under the Article 105 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”),

On the high seas, or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State, every State may seize a pirate ship or aircraft, or a ship or aircraft taken by piracy and under the control of pirates, and arrest the persons and seize the property on board. The courts of the State which carried out the seizure may decide upon the penalties to be imposed, and may also determine the action to be taken with regard to the ships, aircraft or property, subject to the rights of third parties acting in good faith.

This article reflects longstanding customary international law that grants universal jurisdiction over all acts of piracy on the high seas, and that any state may capture and punish pirates wherever they may be found where they are outside of any other state’s territory. Assuming Russia did capture the Arctic Sea in international waters, Russia is soundly exercising its universal jurisdiction by bringing the pirates to Moscow to stand trial under Russian law. I expect the hijackers are trying to argue they were never pirates in the first place, and so Article 105 is not applicable, but that’s questioning the factual basis of jurisdiction, not the legal basis.

Moreover, while it is hard to get a straight story on the nationalities of the hijackers, all of the Arctic Sea’s crew were Russian, and the hijackers were themselves either Russian or stateless people who habitually lived in Russia. Under Article 6(1)(c) of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, this gives Russia some degree of an international obligation to establish jurisdiction over the pirates, and under 6(2)(a) and (b) clearly had the right to exercise such jurisdiction if it chose to do so.

So if Russia captured the pirate on the high seas, under a combination of passive personality jurisdiction, active personality jurisdiction, universal jurisdiction, and specific grants of jurisdiction under treaties, there is little argument to be made that Russia does not properly have jurisdiction over the pirates.

However, an important question that I’ve not seen definitively answered yet is where exactly in the Atlantic the Arctic Sea was captured by the Russian warship. Was it on the high seas, or in Cape Verde’s territorial waters? UNCLOS provisions on the seizure of pirates extend only to the high seas. Once in a nation’s territorial seas, authorization by the coastal state is required before any such enforcement action can be taken.

All I’ve been able to find on the exact location of the recapture is this:

“I have a report from the Russian Navy that the frigate is going to enter Cape Verde territorial waters,” Alexander Karpushin told the Russian News Service. “The warship has its own search plan.”

Cape Verde has declared that its territorial seas extend to the full 12 miles permitted under international law (see here [DOC]). Although the Russian warship would have had a right of innocent passage within that 12 mile territorial sea if the actual capture took place inside that limit, the question of jurisdiction gets trickier:

“[I]t is universally accepted under international law that law enforcement officials of one state may not act to enforce their laws in areas within the territorial sovereignty of another state. Therefore, the naval vessels or marine police from one state may not enter the internal waters, territorial waters or archipelagic waters of another state to patrol for pirates or to arrest persons for acts of piracy, regardless of where such acts took place.”

Of course, even if the Arctic Sea was in Cape Verde’s sovereign territory, Russia might well have obtained Cape Verde’s authorization before undertaking the capture. In part II of this post, I’ll take a look at what the legal status of Russian jurisdiction might be under the hypothetical scenario that no such authorization was sought or obtained.

-Susan

Temporarily Out of Fashion: Somalian Piracy. Temporarily In Fashion: Viking Piracy.

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I realized this morning, to my intense disappoint, that International Talk Like a Pirate Day was yesterday, and I completely missed it. This won’t happen again, I’ve already programmed it into my phone so there’s no chance of me missing it next year. But to make up for my laxness, I’m declaring today International Pirate Blogging Day and celebrating that by giving an update on the somewhat under-reported story of the Arctic Sea. The Arctic Sea was captured by pirates last July before going MIA on an ocean voyage from Sweden to Africa, and the theories surrounding the whole incident sound suspiciously like the plot of Dan Brown novel.

The (roughly known) facts: The Arctic Sea is a Maltese-flagged ship, owned by a Finnish company, which is in turn owned and run by a Russian citizen living in Finland. which when the hijacking occurred had left port from Finland bound for Algeria, with a cargo of timber (owned by a separate company also controlled by the same Russian citizen who owned the ship) worth $1.7 million on board. Around July 24, the Arctic Sea was then captured off the coast of the lawless, warlord controlled territory of Sweden, but this was not reported publicly. Contact was lost with the ship around July 31, during which time the ship chugged down through the English Channel, around the Iberian peninsula, and then remained missing for a number of weeks. On August 17th, Russia successfully recaptured the ship off the coast of Africa near the island nation of Cape Verde. There were no reported injuries. The eight (ten?) hijackers are apparently ethnic Russians, who speak English, and are either stateless or hold passports to Russia, Latvia or Estonia. As an additional point of confusion, when captured off of Africa the ship’s captain “unexpectedly claimed” to be the North Korean ship Congdin 2, en route from Cuba to Sierra Leone — but as far as I can gather, essentially no one has any idea what the hell that was all about.

Russia announced it would be taking the ship back to a Russian port. Instead, the ship next turned up at the Canary Islands, where it remains in limbo as Spain continues to refuse entry to the Arctic Sea. Malta, where the ship is flagged, has been involved in the negotiations but apparently wants to wash its hands of the whole thing. Russia is less than pleased, and announced that:

“The decision of the Maltese authorities has puzzled the Russian Investigative Committee. Moreover, it contradicts international maritime law. The Maltese action makes the ship docking in the Spanish port of Las Palmas problematic. This also creates problems for the ship’s crew because they are running out of fuel and drinking water[.]”

Far as I can make out, the ship’s still bobbing about in the waters off of Las Palmas, but transfer of the ship to the original owners is being organized. Meanwhile, all the pirates are back in Russia and are currently facing prosecution.

The conspiracy theories: There are dozens of theories out there, but the major claim being made seems to be this whole deal was really about “Russian mobsters selling missiles and/or air defense shields to Iran.” The most convoluted of these tales involve Israel’s Mossad being responsible for the diversion of the ship’s trip to Iran:

Another theory is that Mossad concocted the alleged hijacking by setting up a criminal gang, who were unlikely to have known anything about a secret cargo, instead blocking the route to Iran by the mounting media interest.

“Once the news of the hijack broke, the game was up for the arms dealers. The Russians had to act,” said a former Russian army officer. “That’s why I don’t rule out Mossad being behind the hijacking. It stopped the shipment and gave the Kremlin a way out so that it can now claim it mounted a brilliant rescue mission.”

One serious problem for fans of this theory: Why the heck would Israel entrust the recapture of an arms smuggling ship to a bunch of drug addicted bar brawlers? (Additional note to the hijackers: Fire your lawyers. No one believes y’all were members of a stranded environmentalist group trying to “document environmental abuses.” If that’s the best cover story you’ve got, you’re in big trouble.)

And while it seems like something fishy was going on, given the extreme shortage of reliable reporting out there, its hard to tell right now if it’s anything more sinister than a bunch of deluded Russians becoming the Keystone Kops of the piracy world. Because this was the most incredibly awkward ship hijacking the world has seen since Blackbeard was a teenager. The only thing clear about this whole mess is that the pirates were basically a bunch of dogs chasing a car, and they had no idea what to do with the ship once they actually captured it. So they just decided to cruise it down to Cape Verde for the heck of it.

However, combined with recent diplomatic trips by Israel’s president to Russia to discuss Iranian relations the day after the Arctic Sea was found, as well as the cancellation of the U.S. missile shield plans in Poland and the Czech Republic, there’s enough fodder there for the conspiracy theorists to last them for months.

-Susan