Is freedom of navigation under threat?

The world economy is still globalised, at least for the moment. But superpower rivalry and the decay of global rules and norms mean that geopolitical tensions are deepening and global maritime trade is being caught in the crossfire, both literally and figuratively. Some of this is happening in plain sight. In the Red Sea, the Houthis redirected maritime trade and the combined naval forces of Europe, the US, UK and Israel were unable to convince the majority of global shipping that freedom of navigation had been maintained. In the Baltic, coastal states are publicly threatening to detain ships considered to be an environmental or security threat as a shadow-war of pipeline and cable sabotage plays out beneath the waves. Strategic choke points from the Arctic to the Panama Canal are subject to daily diplomatic spats, and harassment of merchant shipping in the Taiwan Strait, the Black Sea and the South China Sea is now considered so routine that incidents are barely reported. Behind closed doors, meanwhile, a legal and diplomatic war is being waged to redefine the very concept of international rules that allow ships to trade internationally. Trade lanes on the oceans are a contested zone for the first time since the Cold War. The very concept of freedom of navigation — a legal principle that states that ships from any country have the right to sail freely in international waters — is under attack. Over the course of a special two-part podcast Lloyd’s List editor-in-chief Richard Meade takes a wider look at what this means for shipping. Is freedom of navigation, a fundamental principle of the law of the sea and a pillar of modern international law, something we have just quietly given up on? Featuring: Dominick Donald, geopolitical risk analyst and adviser to the joint war risks committee at Lloyd’s Ian Ralby, chief executive of consultancy IR Consilium Kristina Siig, Professor of Maritime Law and Law of the Sea, University of Southern Denmark. Professor II of Maritime Law, Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law, University of Oslo, Norway