Eamon Dyas

The Irish Times reported (6.7.26) that Ireland is leading European talks on strengthening maritime legal controls with a European Ocean Act.

This idea could not claim to be a component of international maritime law without UN approval. Of course there is nothing to stop the EU embarking on such a course but the legal strictures it would need to rely upon could not claim the authority of international law, only European law. 

However, that distinction would be purely academic and have no bearing on issues of law if those European countries agreed to act in concert to police their coastlines according to any new strictures. 

The UK and French navies have already intercepted  tankers carrying Russian oil in the English Channel and the Mediterranean with similar action having been taken by the Italian and Spanish navies while in the Baltic we have also seen the Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish navies intercepting vessels with Russian cargoes.  This shows that the rudiments of some sort of policing arrangement are already in place. 

The problem these countries have had to confront up to now is that they are largely stymied by having to act according to domestic strictures that aren’t easily made consistent with UN international law. At the same time we have seen growing criticism of the UN Charter on Maritime Law as a code that is outdated in this era where the world relies so much on undersea communications cables. While there may be a certain amount of truth in that criticism the solution should only come by a new International Conference on the Law of the Sea under UN auspices and not by bodies like the EU arbitrarily making their own arrangements. 

The current push by Europe for changes in the maritime legal strictures under which it is compelled to operate is happening at a time when the EU and NATO are involved in a proxy war with Russia. The changes it proposes are to take place outside the legal machinery that up to now has been the only authority that oversaw the legality of the rights and obligations of international shipping on oceans, seas and straits. Changes to those arrangements up to now and indeed since the 19th century has always been through International Conferences of the Sea. The EU now proposes to circumvent all of this because it has found that the existing code is obstructing its proxy war with Russia and in the process it is willing to tear up not only the existing code of international maritime law but tear down the mechanism by which change has always been provided with the status of international law – an International Conference on the Law of the Sea. 

Such is the descent into legal anarchy that the EU leadership has led Europe in the area of politics, economics, then law and now maritime law and all in pursuit of its pathological proxy war with Russia. 

Interestingly it was the conservation and environmental card that the EU commission exploited in the past as the key that unlocked its ability to assert itself as an independent force in the field of foreign affairs (I wrote about this a while back in Labour Affairs [see for example https://labouraffairs.com/2025/07/01/the-power-of-the-european-commission/) and it is now once more using environmental arguments as a main lever to justify this proposed new extension of EU powers. 

Article from Irish Times :

July 6, 2026

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EU maritime law aims to tighten security

CAROLINE O’DOHERTY Science and Climate Correspondent

The Republic will lead talks this week on a significant piece of legislation aimed at strengthening the defence of marine territory, undersea cables, maritime economy and ocean health. Discussions on the formation of the European Ocean Act will take place against an increasing presence of Russian vessels in Irish waters and growing concerns over the safety of telecommunications cables, electricity interconnectors and subsea pipelines.

A two-day gathering in Wexford, convened under Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, will see officials and experts from member states exchange views on how the law should be worded and implemented.

Draft wording is due from the European Commission later this year, but priority areas have already been signalled.

They include protecting and restoring ocean health and maritime ecosystems, better management of fishing, merchant shipping and other commercial maritime activities, supporting coastal communities and enhancing defence and security.

Defence and security proposals include greater co-operation between operational coastguard and naval services, increased maritime border security and the development of a pilot European drone fleet for improved surveillance.

New legislation

Peter Heffernan, former head of the State’s Marine Institute, a member of the commission’s Mission Board on Healthy Oceans and a board member of the Oceano Azul foundation, will be taking part in the Wexford event this week. He said recent geopolitical developments made the need for new legislation all the more pressing. “Could you have imagined even 18 months ago an Irish Government inviting the French government and the UK government to assist us with maritime surveillance as is being actioned right now?” he said in reference to security arrangements put in place for the presidency. “The world is changing . . . and we have to respond.”

While security challenges have increased in recent times, much of the impetus for the Ocean Act comes from environmental concerns.

Europe’s seas are in poor condition, becoming increasingly acidified from absorbing excess carbon dioxide, plagued with algal blooms from agriculture and chemical fertilisers, overfished and heavily polluted with plastic.

Marine life is struggling and the seas are running out of capacity to soak up the excess heat threatening Earth.

“Mankind will not survive on this planet if we allow ocean degradation to continue,” said Heffernan.

“The severity and the damage associated with climate change, the ocean is our greatest living planetary buffer for those impacts up to now. But it’s at a point where we have to wake up to the reality that if we do not look after the ocean, its ability to look after us is at serious risk.”

The Republic, and the EU collectively, have pledged to place protections on 30 per cent of its seas by 2030. But there is no agreed definition of a marine protected area and no clear system of oversight.

That is one of the deficits in existing marine-related regulations that the Ocean Act is expected to address.

Regulations on fishing rights are often contentious. And the development of offshore wind networks requires more co-operation.

It is possible that a new EU agency could be set up to administer the Act.

But agreeing on a wording that EU ministers and the parliament will pass is expected to take time. Member states are likely to resist any provisions that would lessen their control over their own seas.