Search

The Ministry of Defence, specifically the Royal Navy, uses the 'Duty Holder Structure' to manage how it complies with deviations to maritime laws and health and safety regulations where military necessity requires it. The output statements ensuring compliance are 'safe to operate' certification for all platforms and equipment, and the 'operate safely' declaration for people who are suitably trained within the organisation. Together this forms the Safety Case. Consider a handgun; the weapon has calibration, design and maintenance certification to prove it is safe to operate, and the soldier is trained to be qualified competent to make predictable judgement calls on how and when to pull the trigger (operate safely). Picture those statements as separate circles drawn on a Venn diagram. As levels of autonomy and complexity are dialled up the two circles converge. Should autonomy increase to the point that the decision to fire be under the control of an Artificial Intelligence within the weapon's software then the two circles will overlap. This paper details research conclusions within the overlap, and proposes a new methodology able to certify that an AI based autonomous weapons system is "safe to operate itself safely" when in an autonomous state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note proposes Johannes Janssonius as the hitherto unidentified printer of a 1636 edition of John Selden’s Mare clausum. Previous research postulated that this edition of Selden’s treatise had been printed in Amsterdam, but no additional information about the printer has surfaced. An assessment of books printed in Amsterdam between 1628 and 1636 reveals that the pirated copy of Mare clausum shares several ornaments that also appear in works known to have been printed by Janssonius. In addition, Janssonius demonstrated a willingness to pirate other books across his career, and his cartographic sensitivity might account for the editorializing modifications made to the treatise’s engraved maps, two pieces of circumstantial evidence that help bolster the claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ship arrest enables the detention of a ship that has caused damage or owes money without requiring a court judgment. Ship arrest protects the claimant from evasive actions by the shipowner, such as transferring the ship to another company and changing the flag and the ship's name. The availability of ship arrest goes back several centuries. However, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has developed its domestic ship arrest system over the past 30 years. This article examines quantitatively, for the first time, how the PRC system operates in practice. Between 2014 and 2022, more than 5000 ships were arrested in the PRC. For 2000 of these, court reports are available. Ship arrest operates primarily as security for domestic claims. About 88% of the ships arrested were PRC-flagged ships. Half of these were commercial ships arrested for claims of mortgages and loans, goods and services provided to the ship, and crew wages. About 92% of the foreign ships arrested were commercial ships. These were arrested primarily for provisions and services, and charterparty and cargo claims. The number of berths at the ports supervised by each maritime court correlates well with the number of ship arrests, indicating that the system operates uniformly across the PRC. The number of ship arrests has been declining since 2016. The number of ship arrests with respect to collision claims does not indicate a trend. Ship arrests for pollution claims are uncommon. However, the large number of ships immobilised by arrest poses an environmental issue of wasteful pollution, which needs attention. The significant number of PRC ships arrested reflects an important domestic effect of ship arrest which needs attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the international law of ocean nuclear power plants (ONPPs) with a particular focus on the Arctic. Encompassing norms under the law of the sea, maritime law, environmental law, nuclear energy law and humanitarian law, the article discusses how existing fundamental legal regulations apply to ONPPs in the Arctic. Additionally, the legal role of some relevant institutions, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Maritime Organization, and the Arctic Council, is considered. While the military nuclearisation of the Arctic has been the subject of much scholarly concern, the civil nuclearisation has not – at least not from an international law perspective. International law provides States with a considerable degree of freedom when it comes to the development and deployment of ONPPs, but there are several challenges and legal gaps, not least regarding special legal regulations for the Arctic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matters concerning maritime pilotage have only been dealt with in a few individual points in international maritime law, as pilotage services generally are regulated in the respective territorial waters in accordance with national law. However, especially in view of the possible further expansion of use of deep-sea pilots, it seems worthwhile taking a closer look at the obligations and powers under international law to provide pilotage services. This applies in particular to the establishment of compulsory pilotage and its limitation by the freedom of navigation rights under international law in the various maritime zones. Considerable legal ambiguities become apparent in this context. Hence there are arguments in favour of explicitly regulating maritime pilotage by including it in the provisions on maritime services in Chapter V of the Annex to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines China's strategic maneuvers within the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) agreement negotiations, highlighting its role as an emerging great power in shaping international maritime law and governance. The BBNJ initiative, crucial for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, presents an arena where China's diplomatic, strategic, and legal tactics converge to enhance its influence on the global stage. Through a detailed analysis of the negotiation phases and China's interactions with other states, this study explores how China, while operating under its status as a developing country—a stance recognized globally—effectively wields its ascending power to shape negotiation outcomes that serve its strategic national interests. China's approach in the BBNJ agreement discussions demonstrates a sophisticated integration of traditional values, strategic alliances, and selective engagement with international norms, ensuring that new legal frameworks do not undermine existing agreements or its maritime ambitions. This article sheds light on China's influence in shaping the BBNJ agreement while offering insights into the broader implications of its strategies for other emerging powers in international environmental governance. Although advancing national interests is a common goal for all nations in multilateral negotiations, this article emphasizes the distinctive strategies China employs—integrating traditional values, forging strategic alliances, and adopting selective engagement—to effectively shape outcomes and safeguard its strategic objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the roles of directors of maritime offices as local maritime administration bodies. The publication is divided into three thematic areas. The first concerns the placement of directors of maritime offices within the system of autonomous government administration bodies, as defined by the Act of 23 January 2009 on the Voivode and Government Administration in the Voivodeships. The second thematic area focuses on the legal position of directors of maritime offices, as specified by the Act of 21 March 1991 on Maritime Areas of the Republic of Poland and Maritime Administration. The third thematic area outlines the competences of maritime administration bodies, including those of directors of maritime offices, whose powers extend beyond the above-mentioned Act. The publication concludes with an assessment of the currently applicable legal regulations regarding the subject matter. The aim of this review article is to systematise the fundamental issues concerning directors of maritime offices as local maritime administration bodies. The main research hypothesis posited by the author is that directors of maritime offices possess extensive competences as local maritime administration bodies. The research methods employed include analysis of legal texts and dogmatic analysis. The research is national in scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India–Japan relations over the last two decades have become a regionally and globally oriented 'strategic partnership' from a narrow bilateral relationship. A key factor driving this transformation has been the discourse of the Indo-Pacific regional construct. Considering the overwhelming space occupied by maritime affairs in the bilateral strategic agenda, describing contemporary India–Japan relations as an India–Japan Indo-Pacific Strategic Partnership is justified. The article attempts to provide an evolutionary account of the India–Japan Indo-Pacific strategic partnership. In doing so, it identifies four phases in the evolution of the partnership: conception, actualisation, consolidation, and resilience, corresponding to the evolution of the Indo-Pacific concept from a geographic idea to a strategic concept to a regional order framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International maritime organizations such as IMO, IACS, and BIMCO are actively promoting the development and dissemination of cybersecurity guidelines as the threat of cyber attacks increases rapidly due to the digitalization of ships and the digital transformation of shipping and port operations. Accordingly, in Korea, Maritime Safety Primary Act and Cyber Safety Management Guidelines are being enacted and implemented in 2023 to accelerate the safety of ship operations. In this paper, we examine the development trends of maritime and shipping cybersecurity guidelines that are actively underway at home and abroad and suggest the direction of development of domestic maritime cybersecurity policies in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 27 July 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea declined Luxembourg’s request for provisional measures in the ‘Zheng He’ case. Following two orders of the International Court of Justice, this marked the third consecutive decision in which provisional measures were denied. The question asked in this Note is whether this signals the end of a low threshold for granting provisional measures. Two points of view are possible: either the undertakings given by the respondents are being taken more seriously, or international courts have grown at least somewhat frustrated with the frequent requests for provisional measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarized 3D imaging technology reconstructs the three-dimensional (3D) surface shape of an object by analyzing the polarization characteristics of light reflected from its surface. A key challenge in polarized 3D imaging is accurately estimating the zenith angle. Specular light poses a notable challenge in estimating the zenith angle because it conveys limited information regarding the target. To enhance the accuracy and robustness of zenith angle estimation for specular light, this study proposes a novel zenith angle estimation method that utilizes both specular and diffuse reflections. Based on the estimated zenith angle, the target surface shape was reconstructed. The feasibility of the proposed method was validated using polarimetric images of marine targets, offering a new solution for the accurate identification and 3D imaging of distant maritime targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This policy brief delves into the procedures surrounding maritime zone disputes under UNCLOS and assesses their efficacy in settling prolonged maritime disputes that involve straddling natural resources and livelihoods in the context of Kenya–Somalia. Given the rise in maritime border disputes across Africa, the brief further examines the use of joint development agreements (JDAs) as a temporary measure for resolving such disputes. It analyzes the challenges associated with using JDAs to address maritime boundary delimitations, their impact on peace and security, and their relationship with local contexts, particularly concerning straddling natural resources and livelihoods. Ultimately, the brief aims to offer practical recommendations for resolving prolonged maritime disputes between neighboring states in Africa, with an emphasis on Kenya and Somalia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Exam exam on maritime law and law of the sea: Highway to Hell: Coastal fires out of control" deals with a case in which a fire breaks out on a transport ship carrying electric cars. Maritime law and law of the sea questions are addressed, in particular the liability for value replacement and the right of innocent passage in the coastal sea. The companies involved are Motzdo-AG, Wolfo-AG, Gapag-Floyd GmbH, and B-GmbH. It is discussed whether claims for value replacement and salvage claims exist. The proposed solutions are based on German law. [Extracted from the article]

This essay focuses on the long history of archipelagic formations in the Bay of Bengal as sites of legal experimentation. This history is often narrated beginning with convict transportation and the permanent occupation of the Andaman Islands as a British penal settlement in 1857 and the violent erasure of indigenous cultures that followed it. This essay focuses instead on the hundred years preceding it where the English East India Company experimented with abandoning jurisdiction over the lesser-known islands off the Bengal and Burma coasts and people who lived on them, despite being in the position of a territorial sovereign. These experimentations were recorded most eloquently in legal and administrative records about crime - which included, for example, how assault and "river dacoity" on the deltaic islands of the Sunderbans in lower Bengal were to be dealt with and how men convicted of murder on the islands off the Tenasserim coast in southern Burma were to be prosecuted. In each case, prompted by tensions between the Company and the British Crown, policing and prosecution were abandoned, but this escaped public attention as it took place on the empire's maritime edges. Although jurisdictional claims were central to the expansionist aims of the British empire in the nineteenth century around the Indian Ocean, these instances offer an alternate account of sovereignty, one where assertions and abandonments were both critical to the making of empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the practices and politics of Caribbean prize courts at the turn of the nineteenth century, in order to better understand the dynamics of these peculiar legal institutions on the ground in one of the most volatile inter-imperial maritime spaces of the period. The focus is on the daily operation of the courts, the relationship between different regional courts (within and between empires), and, importantly, on their role within wider Caribbean networks. The article asks how knowledge about these courts was shared within the trans- imperial networks of the region. Court shopping was a common practice and claimants would often go out of their way to take captures or cases to specific courts, either within a single empire or even in a different imperial jurisdiction, but how did potential claimants come to be so familiar with the characteristics of individual administrations and magistrates? And how did they disseminate this information? The story of Caribbean prize courts is the story of order-making at different, sometimes clashing, levels. While the legal regime around prizes can be seen as an ordering mechanism for interactions between empires, the Caribbean saw its own order-building project driven less by decision--makers in faraway metropoles and more by individual actors within the region, equally likely to exploit, support, or circumvent the legal mechanisms set up by officials. These regional groups were especially likely to act against the prize regime when it posed a challenge to the sanctity of their private property, be it goods or enslaved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a new interpretation of mutiny, and of the ways in which this concept was defined and implemented in maritime law during the seventeenth century. It particularly focuses on British seafarers and the evidence surviving in the papers of the English High Court of Admiralty, placed in a comparative perspective with reference to other states' legal provision. Scholars of maritime social history have been particularly preoccupied with the idea of mutiny but have rarely provided a precise decision of it, or explored its legal intricacies, while generally basing their ideas on the increasingly punitive regulations issued by state navies. Some have presented mutiny as an essentially responsive action by which mariners expressed grievances and appealed to shared ideas of patriarchal justice. Others have found in mutiny the stirrings of a distinctively maritime tradition of political radicalism which fermented throughout the early modern period and ultimately contributed to the age of revolutions in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Across this divide, most historians have concurred in presenting it as an extreme, and often violent, act of resistance to constituted authority. This article shifts our attention to the supposed origins of this authoritarian system in the seventeenth century and expands our analysis beyond the martial law of state navies, which applied only in a specific and limited number of ships. It begins by considering the fragmented nature of the multiple systems of national, municipal, military, and customary maritime laws which governed seafaring, arguing that even in naval law there was no consistent definition or prosecution of mutiny, and that the provisions of customary law (much more ubiquitous than naval law) were far less draconian than popular myth would suggest. The article then turns to the depositions of mariners presented in admiralty court cases to explore how seafarers themselves delivered narratives about their conduct at sea, countering accusations of mutiny levied by their employers. It is particularly important to take into account the legal purpose and context of these sources, which highlight disputes and divisions and where statements were strategically crafted – on both sides – to pursue certain objectives. Through this analysis of both legal codes and legal practice, this article demonstrates that authority and law at sea were not a simple matter of unconfined power meeting radical resistance, nor of acquiescence to established hierarchies. While conflict, mistreatment, and asymmetries of power were undoubtedly present in early modern seafaring, the evidence from the High Court of Admiralty shows that, even at sea, shipmasters' and their crews' actions were shaped by knowledge of maritime law. Moreover, seafarers and their employers (whether commercial or imperial) shared expectations about the limits of commanders' power and about consensus and compromise aboard ship. Discussion and protest were only considered mutinous when a voyage failed and provoked recriminations over who should bear the fault and the cost: the consequences, more than the act itself, defined its legal status. This article therefore provides novel reflections on the social dimensions of maritime labour and the agency of early modern seafarers within imperial and legal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the consequences of a single major international affair — the shipwreck of a French ship carrying 165 Muslim pilgrims along the southern shores of Sicily in 1716 — to address two pivotal issues in the reordering of eighteenth--century legal and political systems: the limits of domestic sovereignty in absolutist states and the status of non-Christian polities in the theory and practice of the law of nations. Both the time and place of this episode, which had a vast resonance at the time, have broad implications for how we write about the development of modern international law. While much of the debate on the maritime dimension of the eighteenth-century law of nations focuses on the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, we spotlight the Mediterranean, where endemic corsairing activities coexisted with age-old diplomatic and day-to-day practices of accommodation and mutual recognition between Christian and Muslim polities. Here we draw attention to shipwrecks that occurred in foreign territorial waters and their heuristic potential for better understanding controversial issues of maritime law, such as the status of shorelines, neutrality and the law of the flag. Even after the Peace of Utrecht (1713–15), which is often regarded as a watershed moment in the history of international law, these rules were far from settled and shipwrecks continued to fuel legal and philosophical battles that extended well beyond the confines of the famous controversy between supporters of mare liberum and advocates of mare clausum. The close examination of the 1716 shipwreck leads us to challenge the land/sea divide as constructed by Carl Schmitt and demonstrate that territorial waters were objects of sovereign disputes in much the same way as land territories. We also show how the emerging Eurocentric discourse about the 'barbarity' of non-Christian peoples and nations coexisted with intellectual, economic and diplomatic forces interested in establishing formal agreements between Western European nations, the Ottoman Empire and its North African provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses the periodical supplement's topic of maritime history throughout European empires.

Prize law was a legal regime that played a crucial role in maritime trade and warfare in the European imperial world before the twentieth century, governing both the capture and disposition of enemy property seized by belligerents at sea during wartime. Prize law outlined the rules by which captures were to take place and how captured property was to be handled, adjudicated, and (if "condemned" or deemed a valid capture), disposed of. All European maritime powers had prize regimes during the early modern era, which collectively adjudicated the fates of tens of thousands of vessels worth the equivalent of hundreds of millions of today's dollars. This article examines the procedural law of prize in the long eighteenth century: the rules that governed how legal actors in the prize regime brought cases before tribunals and the tribunals' rules for adjudicating them. It shows that the law of prize was an interpolity legal regime, generated within the ambiguous legal spaces that existed between the jurisdictional boundaries of individual states and empires. The article focuses on three important areas of procedural law for evidence of the interpolity character of the prize regime. It looks first at the distinctive role played by mariners in prize procedures. Captains of privateers and other capturing vessels functioned as quasi-officers of the court, responsible for assembling the documentary record that prize tribunals used to adjudicate captures and bringing the cases before the courts. Imperial prize regulations gave almost no guidance on the rules that they were to follow. The proper procedures were defined by mariners and merchants themselves, as unwritten rules articulated at sea. Second, we turn to how the prize tribunals managed language diversity and translation. I show that, a few exceptions aside, prize tribunals did not acknowledge linguistic difference among litigants. Instead, the tribunals relied on silent and often unacknowledged translation processes, which embedded in their proceedings a fiction that all of the actors before them communicated in a common language. Last, the article shows that prize tribunals applied foreign law in their proceedings, in ways that were not formally authorized by imperial law. By focusing on the neglected procedural law of prize, this article offers a different view of the prize regime than the one that has been painted by many studies of substantive law of prize in the long eighteenth century, in at least two ways. One is that studying the procedural law of prize casts into sharp relief the bottom-up character of prize law. Far from being dictated by sovereigns or from imperial centers, much about the prize regime was created informally by lower-level legal actors. Second, a focus on procedural law reveals important continuities in prize law across space and time. Substantive prize law during the period saw extensive debates about the nature of neutral rights, among other issues, with different empires articulating radically different doctrines. The procedural law of prize, true to its interpolity origins, remained remarkably constant across empires and over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and more often, food issues arise due to concerns about the reduction of compensation for the time spent by the seafarer during the voyage on the ship. An important aspect of the possibility of obtaining compensation for damages to a healthy seafarer is the presence of obligatory contortions - the contingency may arise in connection with the compulsory medical conditions on the ship, and one of the compulsory documents for compulsory medical clearance, codes as a result of the time-consuming or repeated inconvenience Apparently, the Medical-Social Expert Commission, in which it was determined that Skoda was healthy on the ship at the hour when the sailor finished his obligations. In such a situation, the ship's owner carried a financial burden of expenses, which resulted from a connection with painful celebrations, trival or complete unavailability. One of the important factors is the reduction of compensation in the event of the death of a seafarer or the situation if the seafarer became unavailable during the voyage. In a situation where, as a result of the loss of labor obligations on a ship, a sailor dies on a ship due to a damaged health condition, his closest relatives are entitled to financial compensation. The donation is intended to support the level of life of the members of the sailor's family, which they had before their death. Regardless of the fact that such payments are usually transferred to seafarers' employment contracts and collective agreements, the shipowner never pays them voluntarily. In such a situation, the sailor's relatives are trying to claim the right to animal husbandry until the trial. In addition, if the shipmaster was found to be guilty of an accident that caused the death of a seaman, then the seaman's relatives have the right to a reduction in compensation under the contract and under the contract in view of the seaman's earnings, which he would have had to take away, and bring moral harm. Regarding the problem of insurance of seafarers, the basic practice of insurance is that of a shipowner, but seafarers who are on a ship at the end of their work obligations are not covered by this insurance. Most often, the shipowner insures not the seaman himself, but his responsibility to the crew (P&I insurance). This means that if an injury occurs on a ship, a seafarer may seek compensation from the ship's owner, rather than from the insurance company. If the shipowner pays the same compensation to the seaman, then the insurance company will pay the shipowner the same costs. In connection with the provision of assistance to sailors who suffered harm during the voyage, and their families are often faced with this type of security such as the arrest of a ship. The arrest of a ship often leads to the beginning of the judicial process on the right, and in some cases it can lead to the arrest of the ship's master by the sailors of their families and by reaching consensus on the basis of an effective mediation tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) plays a pivotal role in international maritime law, providing a comprehensive framework for the settlement of disputes related to sea and ocean spaces. This systematic review explores Part XV of UNCLOS, dedicated to the ‘Settlement of Disputes,' and delves into the mechanisms outlined in Articles 279 to 299 for resolving maritime conflicts. The study relies on a thorough review of published materials from 1994 to 2023, encompassing monographs, reviews, research papers, case studies, and conference papers available in the Scopus database. The review scrutinises the dispute resolution mechanisms available in UNCLOS. It explores the perspectives of the international legal community, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, highlighting how major powers leverage UNCLOS to critique maritime claims. Practical challenges faced by states litigating against major powers and the need for cautious interpretation are discussed. The study underscores the ongoing discourse about UNCLOS’ role in navigating ocean governance complexities and highlights the importance of continuous exploration and refinement of dispute resolution mechanisms, call for supplementary legal mechanisms, particularly the role of Global Power countries and regional context of maritime regions pose demand for further initiatives for achieving sustainable ocean governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The activity of maritime rescue often comes under political scrutiny from far-right platforms, especially when migratory phenomena intensify, questioning its work because the people being rescued are migrants trying to reach European shores irregularly. However, maritime rescue, which is governed by international maritime law, has a moral and legal imperative: when people are at risk at sea, saving lives takes precedence over any other consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions surrounding Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) are occurring in academia, industry, and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Automatic collision avoidance, as one of the key technologies of MASS, is the core of the autonomous navigation function of MASS, and its role is to solve the autonomous collision avoidance problem during MASS navigation. Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS) is a fundamental basis for automatic collision avoidance, and the navigation of MASS should adhere to it. However, the applicability of MASS to COLREGS has not yet been resolved. Responding to these issues, the paper proceeds to analyze the principal challenges of MASS to COLREGS in terms of the application of MASS to good seamanship, the neglect provision, the lookout provision, the insight of one another provision, and the problems of the deviation provision. Furthermore, suggestions are put forth for the revision of COLREGS, including the mode of revision, the reconstruction of MASS collision liability, the long-term coexistence of MASS and traditional ships, and the risk control of COLREGS revision in the context of artificial intelligence. These suggestions aim to establish a foundation for a more effective adaptation to the advent of the MASS era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As tensions continue to grow across the Taiwan Strait, China is using domestic maritime law to justify an expansion of police power in the international waters of the Taiwan Strait in violation of international law. This Comment will argue that the People's Republic of China has violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea ("UNCLOS") by implementing non-resource-related police power in waters meant only for resource exploration and management. In comparing the language of China's domestic maritime law with that of UNCLOS, this Comment will show that the People's Republic of China has used domestic law to reinterpret and obfuscate its obligations under UNCLOS. As a result, the freedom of navigation granted by UNCLOS to all States has been restricted by China's policing. To prevent China from using its domestic law to assert increasing control over the Strait, the Tribunal of the Law of the Sea should issue an advisory opinion clarifying the purpose of Exclusive Economic Zones and denouncing China's noncompliance with UNCLOS. Additionally, foreign States should continue to exercise freedom of navigation through the Taiwan Strait and push China to limit its police activity of the Strait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The jurisprudence concerning the continental shelf delimitation beyond 200 nautical miles (nm) over the past decade converged on distinguishing delineation from delimitation, which justifies the appropriateness of the judiciary to delimit the continental shelf beyond 200 nm in the absence of the recommendations issued by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). Mauritius/Maldives decided by a special chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea departs from the established jurisprudence. By applying a 'significant uncertainty' standard that puts the relationship between entitlement and delimitation in the centre, Mauritius/Maldives reasons against exercising jurisdiction over the delimitation beyond 200 nm without affirmative recommendations of the CLCS. Mauritius/Maldives reflects judicial restraint in contrast with a more proactive approach prevailing in previous jurisprudence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses three key aspects of the importance of gender equality within ocean and maritime law-making: the employment of gender sensitive language in recognising the roles and responsibilities of 'all people' who work and benefit from ocean activities; the low representation of women in male-dominated ocean governance structures; and a human rights approach to gender equality as a critical means of using law to effectively improve working conditions and support systems for women. In the past decades, gender equality in maritime and ocean affairs has been evolving in international legal instruments in terms of progress in the inclusion of gender sensitive language and specific provisions. Reviews of these legal instruments demonstrate the need to overcome gender blindness and promote equality in maritime and ocean domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Stockholm Declaration and the London Convention/Protocol continue to shape multilateralism in marine environmental law. They guide international law-making and judicial processes including the recent International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and International Law. They also inspire the World Maritime University (WMU)-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute and its work on areas beyond national jurisdiction, plastic pollution, gender equality for the Decade of Ocean Science, the World Ocean Assessment, sea level rise, capacity-building in the Eastern Caribbean, and the Future Ocean Programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]