Capacity Building and the Ownership Dilemma

This working paper, part of the capacity building project, addresses the question of ‘local ownership’ in international capacity building and security sector reform.Keywords: Maritime Security Sector Reform; Capacity Building; Local Ownership; Dilemmas of Ownership; SPIP Methodology Read the paper here.

Refining SPIP

SAFE SEAS has just published two new Concept Notes outlining initial project results. The first is titled Capacity Building and the Ownership Dilemma and discusses the importance of ‘local ownership’ in international capacity building endeavours and security sector reform. It also explores the importance of the principles of local ownership within the context of the SAFE SEAS SPIP methodology. The … Read more

SAFE SEAS attends Maritime Crime Workshop

The principal investigator of SAFE SEAS, Dr. Christian Bueger, is attending a workshop titled “Maritime Crime beyond Piracy: Trends, Challenges and Interconnections”. The workshop is organized by the Centre for Military Studies of the University of Copenhagen. The goal is to explore the relation between piracy and other maritime insecurities and how synergies between different … Read more

Towards Blue Justice: Common Heritage and Common Interest in the Maritime

Peter Sutch, Cardiff University

The importance and complexity of our political, economic and environmental relationship to the sea makes the evolution of a contemporary normative vision of the maritime essential. We need Blue Justice for the blue economy and for the increasingly contentious politics of the maritime. In this blog I want to make a plea for a renewed political theory of the Maritime – A second Grotian moment that generates a Mare Iustitia rather than a Mare Liberum.

In a recent and fascinating piece on this website, Barry J. Ryan urged a critical engagement with the sea and its architecture of freedom and argued persuasively for a normative vision for the sea. Because readers of this blog will have access to that work I want to start there and begin to outline the contours of blue justice. Barry Ryan took the tensions between the freedom of the sea and the idea that the sea is the common heritage of mankind (as well as our outdated distinction between politics on land and politics at sea) as the starting point for his critical and normative argument. He also showed how powerful states carve up this common heritage securing for themselves, rather than mankind, the commercial and military benefits of our common freedom of the sea. We can learn a lot from this – we clearly need normative principles that encourage us to pursue activities in the maritime with at least some concession to the common good. But the foundations of blue justice are such that determining the common good is even more complex than this suggests. The multiple and fragmented legal frameworks that apply to the sea divide the maritime as much as the freedom grabbing of littoral states.

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SAFE SEAS welcomes new staff member

SAFE SEAS is happy to welcome Dr. Robert McCabe to the team as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Robert completed his PhD in 2015 at Maynooth University in Ireland examining the evolution of contemporary counter-piracy initiatives and broader maritime security governance in Northeast Africa and Southeast Asia funded by a John & Pat Hume Research Scholarship. Robert’s wider … Read more

Project presentation at British Academy

SAFE SEAS presented the first insights of the project at an event by the British Academy on March the 6th. The one-day event brought together the principal investigators of the BA’s Sustainable Development Programme. Dr. Bueger highlighted in his presentation the importance of the maritime dimension of sustainable development and the need to strengthen research … Read more

How do small states influence international counterpiracy policy?

Ulrik Trolle Smed and Anders Wivel, University of Copenhagen The piracy problem in East Africa gained international attention in particular from 2005 and onwards. In this international setting, Denmark, a small state with strong maritime interests and tradition, experienced a surprising amount of tailwind for its counterpiracy efforts and policy proposals. Small states are traditionally … Read more

SAFE SEAS team attends international conference of ISA

From the 20th to 25th of February the project team of SAFE SEAS will attend the annual convention of the International Studies Association, held in Baltimore, USA. At the conference, we will connect with our colleagues from the wider discipline of International Relations. A theorey-oriented paper that informs the work of SAFE SEAS will be … Read more

New Project Partner: NCMPR joins SAFE SEAS

SAFE SEAS welcomes a new project partner: The National Centre for Maritime Policy Research, based at Bahria University, Karachi. NCMPR is the core maritime think tank of Pakistan and one of the intellectual drivers of the country’s maritime security discussions. NCMPR will conduct a case study on Pakistan’s maritime security sector and the capacity building … Read more