International Regime for the Security and Safety of Shipping Lanes

Abstract

Maritime security, as one of the fundamental components of the legal order of the seas, is conceptually distinct from maritime safety and concerns the prevention and suppression of intentional, violent, and organized threats against ships, persons, and maritime facilities. Despite the absence of a single, universally accepted definition of maritime security in international law, the proliferation of threats such as maritime terrorism, piracy, organized smuggling, and the abuse of the freedoms of the high seas has underscored the necessity of developing specialized legal regimes in this field. Employing a descriptive–analytical approach, the present article first elucidates the conceptual dimensions of maritime security and maritime transportation and then examines the inherent characteristics of ships and the maritime environment that may create opportunities for “legal evasion.” It demonstrates how the technical and geographical features of maritime transportation can facilitate the commission of transnational unlawful acts. The article subsequently analyzes the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation and its Protocol concerning fixed platforms located on the continental shelf, as the principal treaty instruments for addressing maritime security threats, with particular regard to their scope of application, covered offences, jurisdiction, prosecution, and extradition. Focusing on the tension between the principle of freedom of navigation on the high seas and the exercise of state jurisdiction, particularly in light of the jurisprudence of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the article demonstrates that although the expansion of criminal and preventive jurisdiction is necessary to combat maritime terrorism, in the absence of an appropriate legal balance it may itself become a threat to the fundamental freedoms of the seas and to the stability of the international legal order.