Author: Albert Vlodder

A seminar on ‘Decarbonizing the Shipping Industry – Law Perspectives’ was organized in Oslo on 10-11 December 2024. Henrik Ringbom was one of the organizers and speakers at the event, which analyzed public and private law perspectives of international and EU developments in the green transition in shipping. The full program, including presentations, can be found here: https://www.jus.uio.no/nifs/english/research/events/2024/2024-12-10-11-greenhouse-gases-and-shipping.html

The Administrative Board of the European Maritime Safety Agency, of which Henrik Ringbom is a member since 2017, met for its 71^st meeting on 27-28 November in Lisbon. https://www.emsa.europa.eu/about/administrative-board.html

Jouni Honkala attended a research seminar, organized by the Finnish Ministry of Defence, MATINE, on 19 November. New research results of MATINE projects were presented in the seminar, of which autonomous systems and especially autonomous subsea surveillance systems and their applications raised large interest.

Henrik Ringbom was invited to participate at an event on maritime security enforcement in Stockholm on 15 October, giving a speech on the shadow fleet and sabotage activities in the Baltic Seas. The event was organized by the shipping organization Svensk sjöfart and covered by the magazine Sjöfartstidningen’s November issue.

Link to article.

The annual conference of the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea (NCLOS) took place in Tromsø, Norway, on 6-7 November  2024. The theme of the conference this year was ‘Future Trajectories for the Law of the Sea’. Henrik Ringbom from ÅA/BALEX participated and gave a presentation entitled ‘The Irrelevance of UNCLOS for Regulating Ship-Source Pollution Today – The Case of Climate Change’.

The program of the entire conference is found here.

A new EU Cost Action that focuses on human rights and the sea, Blue Rights, started its activities on 31 October. The Action aims to assess, from a legal perspective, how human rights can be enjoyed also by people at sea and by all people at sea. It will answer two fundamental questions: What is the content and scope of the rights to life, liberty and health when applied at sea and who is responsible for protecting them and how? Henrik Ringbom is a member of the Management Committee of the Action and also a co-leader of one of the sub-working groups. The first inaugural meeting of Blue Rights took place in Brussels on 31 October 2024.

Link https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA23103/

Henrik Ringbom was invited by the Croatian Maritime Law association in collaboration with several universities, to participate in two events in Dubrovnik in September. First, he gave a keynote speech at the Maritime Law Colloquium “In Search For Regulatory Approach to Autonomous Vessels” on 16 November, whereafter he gave a lecture on ‘Greenhouse gases as Opposed to Traditional Marine Pollution – Regulatory Perspectives’ at the International Maritime and Transport Law Course, this year entitled ‘Transport Law de Lege Ferenda 2024’.

Program here.

The 10^th annual Conference on Operational Maritime Law was organised from 2-5^th September 2024 at the University of Ljubljana by the NATO Centre of Excellence of Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters, in cooperation with the Republic of Slovenia Ministry of Defence. Åbo Akademi/BALEX was represented at the Conference by Jouni Honkala. One of the main topics was the overall challenge of protecting of critical infrastructure at sea from the perspectives of the law of the sea, on operational perspective, economic perspective and the international law perspective. The Vignettes introduced the participants to very actual and challenging issues of the situation in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. The operations of China in the East China Sea, Taiwan and South China Sea were also heavily on the agenda. Various scenarios of hybrid activities in the Baltic Sea and the Red Sea region were assessed. New developments in autonomous and unmanned systems were approached from the view of commercial use (Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships, MASS), navy deployment and the recent Newport Manual.

Åbo Akademi had a key role in organizing the 30^th Nordic Maritime Law Seminar in Mariehamn, Åland Islands, on 2-4 September. This seminar is organized bi-annually by the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law, at the University of Oslo, and has been the leading maritime law event in the Nordics since many decades.

Program is found here.

Åbo Akademi organised and hosted on 15-17^th of August 2024 the annual ‘summer seminar’ (which is organized jointly with Stockholm University since for decades, every second year in the Finnish archipelago, every second year in the Swedish archipelago) on altered the security situation in the Baltic Sea. The participants were academic and other experts from Finland and Sweden, and included persons closely linked to BALEX . The topics covered a broad range of issues, including the effects on the changed security of the Baltic Sea to maritime law, hybrid operations, the effect of NATO membership of Finland and Sweden to shipping, security of supply, jurisdictional issues linked to sabotage to underwater cables and pipelines, including the NordStream case, possible private tort law claims on Baltic Connector, and effects to maritime labour law. Henrik Ringbom, Al Vlodder and Jouni Honkala participated.

Program here.

This summer, I had the privilege of attending the Rhodes Academy for Ocean Law and Policy in Rhodes, Greece. The program ran from June 23rd to July 12th. It was an intensive three-week course on the law of the sea with lectures from some of the most accomplished in the field, including current and past judges of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), practicing the law of the sea lawyers, and a negotiator from UNCLOS III. One of the most enjoyable parts of the program was the group workshops, which took place on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. There were often elaborate group exercises, which ended in student presentations and, often, lively debate! While UNCLOS and the law of the sea were the primary topics of discussion, there were lectures on ocean geology, hydrography and climate change.

The course was comprised of 50 students from around the world with varying educational and professional backgrounds. The program was not just lectures, studying and tests. There were many organized events, including day trips to Lindos on Rhodes Island and the Island of Simi.

The program culminates in an oral exam on the final Friday (there was a written exam on the second Friday), followed by an evening tour of the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes and the graduation ceremony outside near the palace. It was a wonderful experience, and I recommend it to others looking for an intensive introduction to the law of the sea and a chance to meet and network with many in the field.

On, 7-8 June, back-to-back with the NESS conference, we organized a special writing seminar on legal issues linked to off-shore wind farms in Husö, Åland Islands, and on the ferry there. The outcome of this seminar, entitled, ‘Harnessing the Wind: Offshore Wind Power’s Regulatory Framework, will be published in a special issue of the Oceans Development and International Law journal in late 2025.

Agenda Offshore Wind Power’s Regulatory Framework

Åbo Akademi was the main host and organizer of the 16th NESS – Nordic Environmental Social Science Conference, on 4–6 June 2024 in Turku. Among the 27 workshops linked to the event, one was specifically dedicated to legal and governance issues linked to critical marine infrastructure. This workshop was co-organized by co-organized by Gabriela Argüello from the University of Gothenburg and Henrik Ringbom from ÅA/BALEX

Link: https://ness2024.fi

Henrik Ringbom from ÅA/BALEX participated in the CMI Colloquium in Gothenburg on 22-24.5, presenting the CMI’s work in the field of autonomous ships, both at the working session of the International Working Group on MASS on 22 May and at the main colloquium conference on 23 May.

Link: https://comitemaritime.org/event/gothenburg-colloquium/

 

The Åbo Akademi Sea Profiling area organized on 14-15^th  of May, in cooperation with the Centre for Sustainable Ocean Science (SOS), a research seminar in Kultaranta, Naantali, where PhD candidates and others had the opportunity to present their papers. Al Vlodder, Jouni Honkala and Henrik Ringbom participated in the two-day event.

The main topics of Haugesund International Conference on 16-17^th of April 2024 were Maritime Security, Naval Warfare, and the Law of the Sea. Jouni Honkala attended. The conference covered a broad range of topics related to maritime security and safety, like the protection of seabed infrastructure, the activities of public authorities in relation to the above mentioned, and innovative maritime safety solutions and maritime technology development by companies, the utilization of unmanned vessels and crafts for protecting gas pipelines and other infrastructures and for military use. The conference also addressed current issues and actions that threaten maritime safety and security around the world, including notably the recent gas pipeline and submarine cable cut-offs and the terrorist attacks in the Red Sea.

The inaugural stakeholder event for the PROTECT BALTIC project took place in Hanasaari, Espoo, on 29 February 2024. ÅA-law, who leads the legal work package of the project, was represented at the event by Henrik Ringbom and Niels Krabbe. The Protect Baltic project, managed by Helcom, is a Horizon Europe-funded initiative that aims to address the challenges of expanding marine protected areas (MPAs) and ensuring their effectiveness in the Baltic Sea region.

See more on the stakeholder event here https://helcom.fi/helcom-at-work/events/helcom-stakeholders-confrences/bsc2024/ and on the Protect Baltic project here: https://protectbaltic.eu