CIL sponsored a panel on ’Legal and Institutional Mechanisms to Manage the Marine Environment in the Seas of Southeast Asia: Status and Way Forward’ at the Sixth East Asian Seas Congress (EAS Congress) in Iloilo, Philippines on 27 November 2018. The theme of the EAS Congress this year was ‘25 Years of Partnerships for Healthy Oceans, People and Economies: Moving as One with the Global Ocean Agenda’. The event is co-organised every three years by the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) and includes a Ministerial Forum on the last day of the meeting.

This CIL-sponsored session aimed to investigate and discuss the extent to which regional institutions can and may foster a common understanding of applicable international law and facilitate implementation. An underlying question in this investigation was to assess the possibility of following an ASEAN way and bypassing the need for a regional, binding and overarching agreement for the protection of the marine environment.

The CIL panel session comprised presentations by CIL researchers—Amber Rose Maggio, Dita Liliansa and Youna Lyons—followed by comments by Raphael Lotilla, former Director of PEMSEA and Somboon Siriraksophon, SEAFEC Project Director. The three speakers focussed on the following topics:

• principles and rules of international marine law applicable to the seas of Southeast Asia;
• regional institutions and the protection of the marine environment in Southeast Asia; and
• application of international marine law to the seas of Southeast Asia, with the examples of sensitive marine areas, the IOSEA Marine Turtle Memorandum of Understanding and Fisheries Refugia.

The speakers brought together the overarching international legal framework, comparisons of regional cooperative mechanisms and specific examples of application of the international legal framework by regional bodies. Click here for the session’s highlights.

This comparison of regional institutions and coordination mechanisms is part of an ongoing study of regional cooperation mechanisms for the protection of the marine environment in Southeast Asia. It will be updated as CIL’s research progresses. Click on the links below for more information on the panel. 

• Table of international environmental law treaties applicable to the protection of the marine environment in Southeast Asia 
• Diagram of regional bodies involved in the protection of the marine environment in Southeast Asia 
• Map of sensitive marine areas in Southeast Asia under international law
• Session brochure

Head of Ocean Law and Policy Robert Beckman and Research Associate Millicent McCreath participated in the NUS-Sweden Arctic Roundtable on 21 November 2018 at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The Roundtable was organised by the Embassy of Sweden and the NUS Energy Studies Institute. Speakers included the Swedish Ambassador for Arctic Affairs, the Director-General of the Swedish Polar Institute and the Swedish Ambassador to Singapore. Representatives from several NUS research institutes outlined their research activities on the Arctic.

Associate Professor Beckman gave a brief presentation on CIL’s research on the Arctic, including the recently revised CIL Arctic Guide prepared by Captain J Ashley Roach.

Youna Lyons and Dita Liliansa participated in the Indonesian Centre for the Law of the Sea (ICLOS)  Conference on Artificial Islands Beyond National Jurisdiction. The conference was organised by Universitas Padjadjaran in Bandung, Indonesia.

Ms Lyons was invited as a speaker and gave a presentation on ‘Artificial Islands, Installations and Related Activities by Non-State Actors in Area Beyond National Jurisdiction’.

Ocean Law and Policy Programme Head Robert Beckman participated in the 10th South China Sea International Conference organised by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. The conference was held from 7 to 9 November 2018 in Da Nang, Vietnam. The 10th conference in this series was attended by more than 200 participants from Vietnam, the region and many countries. A/P Beckman chaired one session, gave a presentation in another session, and was a panellist in the final wrap-up session. His presentation was entitled ‘Noncompliance and Integrity of Maritime Legal of the Maritime Legal Order’. Click on the links for the abstract and PowerPoint slides.

Dr Tara Davenport participated in the Second Workshop on ‘Developing Options for the Implementation of the Due Regard and Reasonable Regard Obligations under UNCLOS’ held in Bangkok, Thailand on 29–30 October 2018. The workshop was the second one organised by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) to address the coexistence of submarine cables and deep seabed mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The workshop brought together representatives from the ISA, the ICPC, the cable industry, the mining industry, academia, and government representatives to discuss practical solutions to minimise interference with these two important uses of the oceans. Dr Davenport served as facilitator for the round-table discussions between the cable industry and deep seabed mining industry.

Senior Research Fellow Youna Lyons attended the 73rd meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). The meeting took place from 22 to 26 October 2018. Ms Lyons was head of delegation of the Advisory Committee for the Protection Sea, an NGO with a consultative status at the IMO. In addition to most plenary meetings, she took part in three working groups on marine plastics, underwater noise and biofouling.

Ocean Law and Policy Programme Head Robert Beckman participated in a Law of the Sea Workshop in Kuala Lumpur on 18 October 2018. Organised by the Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA) and the Japanese Embassy in Malaysia, the workshop was on a rules-based order for the oceans and issues pertaining to activities in the South China Sea. Associate Professor Beckman gave a presentation on ‘UNCLOS as a Rules-Based Order for the Oceans’.

CIL researchers presented papers at the conference ‘International Law in Asia: Challenges and Opportunities’ in Beijing. The conference was organised by the Asian Society of International Law and Renmin University of China Law School

Research Fellow Amber Rose Maggio presented a paper entitled ‘Regional Cooperation for Protection of the Marine Environment in Southeast Asia’. The paper focussed on cooperation in the South China Sea and explored current trends in regional cooperation in Southeast Asia, including the challenges faced and future prospects in the region. Dr Maggio highlighted particularities of the region with regard to cooperative efforts, in order to understand the best way to approach the analysis.

Research Associate Millicent McCreath presented a paper entitled ‘UNCLOS Legal Framework for Cooperation in East and Southeast Asia on the Reduction of Marine Plastic Pollution from Land-Based Sources’. In her paper, Ms McCreath sought to clarify the content of the UNCLOS obligations on land-source pollution and regional cooperation, to encourage states to take active measures to prevent marine plastic pollution, and to work together to that end. The paper also addressed the legal implications of failing to meet these obligations, particularly the risk of compulsory dispute settlement procedures under UNCLOS.

At The Legal Regime of Underwater Cultural Heritage and Marine Scientific Research Conference in Bodrum, Turkey, Research Fellow Sun Zhen presented a paper titled ‘Protecting Underwater Cultural Heritage in the EEZ and on the CS—Could the Marine Scientific Research Regime Play a Role?’ The conference was organised by the Research Center of the Sea and Maritime Law, DEHUKAM, Ankara University, and co-organised by the Center for Oceans Law and Policy (COLP), University of Virginia. Click here for the abstract.

Research Fellow Amber Rose Maggio and Postdoctoral Fellow Marija Jovanovic presented papers at the International Law and Universality Conference in Manchester organised by the European Society of International Law.

Dr Maggio’s paper was entitled ‘Marine Environmental Protection, Regional Cooperation and Universality: The Particular View from Southeast Asia’. The paper explored the preference for universality in environmental standard setting with regard to marine environmental protection, how regionalism and regional cooperation may be replacing universalism in the implementation of measures for the protection and preservation of the marine environment, and what the implications are for states in Southeast Asia. The paper discussed the legal framework and possible move away from universality, regional cooperation mechanisms, the particular view from Southeast Asia with a focus on the South China Sea, and future prospects.

Dr Jovanovic presented a paper entitled ‘Europe, Trade Deals and Forced and Child Labour in Developing States: Towards a More Principled Approach’. She explored the extraterritorial reach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in cases of forced and worst forms of child labour when these practices occur within the supply chains of companies domiciled in European states. Exposing an unprincipled gap in the current ECHR jurisprudence, the paper argued that the absence of any state responsibility pertaining to activities of business enterprises domiciled in their territory, especially in countries with well-known and severe governance gaps, undermines the universal reach of the absolute prohibition of slavery and forced labour and effectively encourages and facilitates such practices outside the European espace juridique. The paper then presented reasons for and ways of framing states’ positive obligations in these circumstances that are consistent with the principles of interpretation of the ECHR and with the growing international recognition of such duties by international organisations and established precedents in some domestic jurisdictions.