ARTICLES & PUBLICATIONS

This article posits that the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, particularly its prescriptive and enforcement jurisdictional apportionments to nations relating to the prevention and control of pollution, establishes the peacetime IEL normative framework at sea. After READ MORE...

According to its main proponent, retired Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, Turkey’s concept of mavi vatan represents an idea, a symbol, and a doctrine. As an idea, mavi vatan encompasses Turkey’s maritime interests; as a symbol, Turkey’s eponymous military exercise in 2019 demonstrated its maritime jurisdiction READ MORE...

Navy Doctrine on Planning for Maritime Security Operations is Inadequate. “Military planning is essential to everything that naval forces do.” If the Navy intends to successfully conduct maritime security operations (MSOs), it needs to be able to effectively plan for them. That planning is particularly READ MORE...

The new U.S. tri-service maritime strategy, Advantage at Sea, which refers to the three maritime services (Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard) collectively as the single Naval Service, largely focuses on great power competition at sea against peer or near-peer competitors.1 However, although the READ MORE...

For the past several years, Turkey has leveraged its regional economic, political, and military superiority to aggressively assert a claim over contested, potentially oil-rich regions of the Eastern Mediterranean. This hegemonic strategy, domestically referred to as “Mavi Vatan,” or “blue homeland,” has most READ MORE...

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Example of a recent expert witness report I compiled. READ MORE...

The Global Maritime Crime Programme of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) pro- vides Member States with technical support to tackle the full range of transnational maritime crime. The present Manual underpins that technical support, serving both as a training tool for the READ MORE...

This article examines the issue of the rights companies and their employees have during a Coast Guard
investigation. READ MORE...

The Coast Guard released its Arctic Strategic Outlook on April 22, 2019, which replaces the service’s 2013 Arctic Strategy. The strategic outlook “reaffirms the service’s commitment to American leadership in the region through partnership, unity of effort, and continuous innovation” through the READ MORE...

On Tuesday, December 4, 2018, the President signed into law S. 140, the “Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018,” which, among other things, makes changes to the law relating to the regulation of vessel incidental discharge and ballast water. These changes are set out in Title IX of the READ MORE...

The discovery of vast hydrocarbon reserves in the Levant Basin holds the promise of a significant economic boom to nations in the region, particularly Cyprus, Israel, and Lebanon. Yet this seeming windfall also has the potential to create, or exacerbate, tensions in the region, as the beneficiary nations READ MORE...

Arctic water operations present a unique set of challenges that range from environmental to structural to regulatory in nature. This article highlights some of these challenges, and ultimately indicates that IMC’s unique surveyor-regulatory compliance team is an ideal resource for operators looking for READ MORE...

The U.S. Coast Guard’s Port State Control (PSC) program is intended to ensure that foreign-flagged vessels operating in U.S. waters comply with applicable international conventions and U.S. regulations, with the ultimate goal of identifying and eliminating substandard ships from U.S. waters. READ MORE...

The regulatory landscape relating to ballast water management in the U.S. has materially changed now that type-approved systems are available for installation, with others soon to follow suit. READ MORE...

Arctic sea ice is melting, slowly but inexorably. As the ice disappears, mankind will be afforded access to regions and activities, including commercial fishing, that have been inaccessible for our entire recorded history. There is currently no regulatory body or mechanism in the high seas Arctic READ MORE...

The U.S. Coast Guard ballast water management regulations are set out in Title 33, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 151, Subparts C and D. Whereas Subpart C applies only to the Great Lakes and the Hudson River, Subpart D applies more generally to waters of the United States; thus, this READ MORE...

On 13 July, the US Coast Guard issued Marine Safety Information Bulletin (MSIB) 010/16, entitled Alternate Management System (AMS) Program Update. This MSIB “provides updates on aspects of the Coast Guard’s AMS program,” and “clarifies CG-OES Policy Letter No. 13-01, revision 2, by READ MORE...

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) was created in 2004 to more effectively conserve and manage the region's tuna fishery. One of the Commission's principal enforcement tools is the high seas boarding and inspection regime, which authorizes each member state to board READ MORE...

As the S.S. City of Flint, a U.S.-flagged "Hog Islander" merchant ship, cleared New York Harbor on October 3, 1939, neither her captain, Joseph Gainard, nor her crew had any reason to suspect that they were embarking on a voyage that would place them at the epicenter of a diplomatic and legal READ MORE...

A similar paradigm shift is necessary in the coming years regarding the role of unmanned maritime systems (UMS) in future combat operations. To some extent, such a conceptual shift is already underway, as the U.S. Navy, as well as many other navies throughout the world, already employ unmanned READ MORE...

The 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) is, quite understandably, viewed by many as the “be all, end all” statement and source of the law of the sea. The reality, however, is that while UNCLOS provides an overall framework for legal governance of the world’s oceans and codifies READ MORE...

Fishing fleets from many countries, faced with diminishing catches and profits, increasingly have turned their attention to the remaining healthy source in the world: the tuna fishery in the western and central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). This exists in a vast, sparsely populated region, and much of the READ MORE...