CHASING flagless, sanctioned, shadow fleet tankers across the Caribbean will raise eyebrows and headlines, but won’t worry the lawyers unduly.

But when the US starts seizing legitimately flagged, unsanctioned tankers, everyone starts to pay attention.

Two days after the US Coast Guard stopped and boarded the Panama-flagged tanker Centuries (IMO: 9206310), laden with 1.8m barrels of Venezuelan Merey crude headed for China, we are still largely unclear on the US justification for the seizure.

Accusations of piracy from Nicolás Maduro are to be expected, but this is a case with consequences well beyond Caracas.

“The US practice of arbitrarily seizing other countries’ vessels grossly violates international law,” noted China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday, adding China’s irony-free opposition to anything that “infringes upon other countries’ sovereignty and security, and all acts of unilateralism or bullying” for good measure.

This is no longer just about Trump’s Venezuela strategy.

Boarding and seizing commercial vessels in international waters pushes the boundaries of accepted maritime enforcement.

As much as Nato would love to have sent the helicopters into the Baltic to detain clearly dangerous shadow fleet rust buckets, it has held back so far. It has done that partly because it knows there will be consequences, both immediately and down the line when the same treatment is given to its own ships.

As the security experts have already pointed out, if the justification is sanctions enforcement alone, then where exactly is the legal line between lawful interdiction and coercive power projection at sea?

Disrupting Venezuela’s oil trades may not come with hugely significant consequences for the oil markets today, but eroding the basics of maritime security promises long-term problems.

China, Russia, the US and the EU have all separately raised concerns this year at the UN Security Council that global maritime security is being dangerously and routinely undermined.

But they have all pointed the finger of blame at each other as the source of the problem.

The accusations of piracy and unlawful interference with freedom of navigation have been coming thick and fast for a while now, but tactics that generate accusations of piracy one day can’t simply be rebranded as “law enforcement” or “counter-narcoterrorism” the next.

For shipowners, insurers and operators, the precedent matters more than the politics.

If freedom of navigation is conditional on who is doing the boarding rather than how it is done, then the rules-based maritime order is becoming increasingly selective — and far less predictable.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List

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