favorite strategy when advancing special and particular interests to the detriment of
established norms and customs.
Hence, it is often complained that stricter rules on marine environmental protection are becoming deterrents to both long-distance trade and military security.
164 A
most pertinent illustration of such complaint can be drawn from the pronouncement
of Jay Johnson, United States Navy Admiral, to the American Senate. In the
communication, the Admiral remarks that:
During my tenure, I have witnessed the jurisdictional creep of coastal states, often with the
direct support of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) contrary to the law of the sea as
codified in the Convention. These claims of regional and coastal state jurisdiction and
authority are invoked to the detriment of navigational freedoms to further a wide range of
special interests, including enhanced environmental protection, total nuclear disarmament,
world health, limitations on measures to combat transnational crime and illegal migration,
and management and allocation of the radio frequency spectrum. During the past decade,
coastal states and regional groups of coastal states have continued their efforts to extend
jurisdiction beyond that which is recognized and permitted under the Convention (emphases
added).
165
Military security is part of the general concept of maritime security, a select group
of concerns that seems reluctant to accept marine environmental security issues as a
member. A traditional definition of security itself is limited to military responsibilities, scenarios in which the armed forced would be called into action, in a way that
renders “maritime security” identical to “military security” in practice.
A significant flaw in that debate, however, is to equal environmental concerns
with purely ecological issues, in a radical biocentric approach to the content and
scope of those concerns.
166 Such an identification between maritime and military
security is mostly likely unproductive for analyses of contemporary environmental
threats and possible answers to them.
167 Sure, environmental preoccupations do
have the intention to increase the overall quality of the world’s oceans, a reason why
they made their way into Part XII of the Convention, among other provisions
sparsely spread in the treaty, such as Art. 19 (2) (h), on the prohibition of willful
pollution acts while transit through the territorial sea of a coastal state; or Art.
240 (d), on the duty to comply ecological regulations while conducting marine
scientific research, to name but a few. However, environmental concerns are also
marine security concerns, which are broader than traditional maritime concerns
(such as piracy, drug and human-trafficking at sea, armed robbery at sea, and other
threats to shipping and navigation).
164 Ikeshima (2011), p. 8.
165 Letter from Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jay Johnson, to Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 29 June 2000.
166 Some authors reveal skepticism as to the utility of a concept of “environmental security threats”,
based on the expectation that such broadly defined threats would tend to transform environmental
security into “security for the environment per se”, in an exclusively biocentric view that disregards
military, political, societal and economic considerations. See Buzan (1991), p. 5.
167 See Calley et al. (2015), p. 512.
176
6 Creeping Jurisdiction in the Law of the Sea: Threat to Navigational Freedoms or. . .
established norms and customs.
Hence, it is often complained that stricter rules on marine environmental protection are becoming deterrents to both long-distance trade and military security.
164 A
most pertinent illustration of such complaint can be drawn from the pronouncement
of Jay Johnson, United States Navy Admiral, to the American Senate. In the
communication, the Admiral remarks that:
During my tenure, I have witnessed the jurisdictional creep of coastal states, often with the
direct support of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) contrary to the law of the sea as
codified in the Convention. These claims of regional and coastal state jurisdiction and
authority are invoked to the detriment of navigational freedoms to further a wide range of
special interests, including enhanced environmental protection, total nuclear disarmament,
world health, limitations on measures to combat transnational crime and illegal migration,
and management and allocation of the radio frequency spectrum. During the past decade,
coastal states and regional groups of coastal states have continued their efforts to extend
jurisdiction beyond that which is recognized and permitted under the Convention (emphases
added).
165
Military security is part of the general concept of maritime security, a select group
of concerns that seems reluctant to accept marine environmental security issues as a
member. A traditional definition of security itself is limited to military responsibilities, scenarios in which the armed forced would be called into action, in a way that
renders “maritime security” identical to “military security” in practice.
A significant flaw in that debate, however, is to equal environmental concerns
with purely ecological issues, in a radical biocentric approach to the content and
scope of those concerns.
166 Such an identification between maritime and military
security is mostly likely unproductive for analyses of contemporary environmental
threats and possible answers to them.
167 Sure, environmental preoccupations do
have the intention to increase the overall quality of the world’s oceans, a reason why
they made their way into Part XII of the Convention, among other provisions
sparsely spread in the treaty, such as Art. 19 (2) (h), on the prohibition of willful
pollution acts while transit through the territorial sea of a coastal state; or Art.
240 (d), on the duty to comply ecological regulations while conducting marine
scientific research, to name but a few. However, environmental concerns are also
marine security concerns, which are broader than traditional maritime concerns
(such as piracy, drug and human-trafficking at sea, armed robbery at sea, and other
threats to shipping and navigation).
164 Ikeshima (2011), p. 8.
165 Letter from Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jay Johnson, to Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 29 June 2000.
166 Some authors reveal skepticism as to the utility of a concept of “environmental security threats”,
based on the expectation that such broadly defined threats would tend to transform environmental
security into “security for the environment per se”, in an exclusively biocentric view that disregards
military, political, societal and economic considerations. See Buzan (1991), p. 5.
167 See Calley et al. (2015), p. 512.
176
6 Creeping Jurisdiction in the Law of the Sea: Threat to Navigational Freedoms or. . .