The Interplay between Maritime Security and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: Help or Hindrance?

The concept of maritime security and its interplay with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. This talk will focus on the meaning of maritime security in the literature and state practice and explore its relationship with LOSC. It will argue that maritime security is not simply a concept that needs defining but a blend of threats and activities by state and non-state actors. This will invite consideration of whether LOSC can help or hinder the efforts of states to address this emerging blend of threats and activities at sea. To evaluate this point, the conduct of maritime law enforcement operations by states as well as the development of maritime domain awareness and information-sharing practices will be discussed. It will be explained that LOSC cannot offer a solution to all maritime security threats, and thus states have turned to new tools and agreements to strengthen the security of the oceans, which represents a paradigm shift in the international law of the sea.

Dr Sofia Galani (LLB, LLM, PhD, FHEA) is Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol. Her research interests lie in the field of the international law of the sea, maritime security, human rights law and terrorism studies. She is a co-editor of the collection on Maritime Security and the Law of the Sea: Help or Hindrance? (with Sir Malcolm Evans, Edward Elgar, 2020). Her monograph entitled Hostages and Human Rights: Towards a Victim-Centred Approach? is due to be published by Cambridge University Press. Sofia has been providing legal advice to the Global Maritime Crime Programme of the UNODC and been sitting at the Non-Executive Board of Advisors of Human Rights at Sea. She is the Editor of the Case and Comment section of the European Human Rights Law Review.