The Historical Origins of the Duty to Save Life at Sea in International Law

The article looks into the historical development of the international law duty to save life at sea. It argues that this duty has its origins into legal sources that predated the genesis of international law in the sixteenth century. According to these sources, three separate sets of norms were developed to address the need to save life at sea: rules on the safety of navigation; rules concerning assistance to the shipwrecked and their protection; and rules on the duty of masters to provide assistance. Leaving aside the first category, the article illustrates how these sources where used by seventeenth and eighteenth century international lawyers to substantiate the existence of a duty to assist the shipwrecked and a right to seek refuge for vessels in distress. Nineteenth century scholars added the duty of the master to provide rescue. These scholarly codifications set the basis for a codification, first by learned societies and then by states, during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Codification was eventually achieved through two conventions adopted in 1910. The article argues that while the content of the duty changed to adapt to technological developments affecting navigation, as well as to changing perceptions of the sources and effects of international law, the common principle at its basis has always been part of international law

The Law of the Sea in Past Scholarship

The law of the sea is currently understood as a distinct field of international law that came into existence together with (modern) international law. Has this always been so? How did past international lawyers understand what we call today ‘the law of the sea’? Were they aware of the fact that this was a separate legal regime? And when did modern conceptions of the law of the sea emerge? This article examines past scholarship, from the sixteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century, in order to identify how law of the sea was conceived in past scholarship and how this conception links to our current understanding of the field

Exploring the Ambiguity of Operation Sophia Between Military and Search and Rescue Activities

Over the past decade, for the purpose of managing the phenomenon of migration by sea, a wide number of different measures have been adopted by the European Union and its Member States. Notwithstanding the persistent need and the legal obligation to save people's lives at sea, Europe remains stocked on the protection of the security of its internal and external borders and goes ahead with the launch of Eunavfor Med--Operation Sophia, the first naval mission aimed to disrupt the business model of migrant smuggling and human trafficking in the Mediterranean. The following chapter examines the factual and legal background behind the establishment of this military mission and focuses on two sensitive and interrelated aspects: the use of enforcement powers against alleged smugglers and traffickers on the one hand and the rescue of irregular migrants at sea on the other hand. While various challenges prevent the activation of the crucial military phase of Operation Sophia, the operational and legal framework applicable to incidental search and rescue interventions carried out by its naval forces appears rather unclear and problematic under different perspectives of international law, especially if the Operation will continue into Libyan territorial waters in cooperation with its unstable authorities

A note on maritime delimitation in a multizonal context: the case of the Mediterranean

This article points out some of the issues that may arise during the delimitation of maritime boundary in a sea area where coastal states have proclaimed various maritime zones. Issues considered include delimitation in the presence of overlapping or coincident zones, the role of existing boundaries, use of all-purpose maritime boundaries, and the delimitation of future zones. Special reference is made to the Mediterranean Sea where coastal states have advanced various claims consisting of zones sometimes different from the ones provided for in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea