Abstract
This study examined the development of international and municipal laws on maritime safety and security and identified the challenges undermining the efficiency of the provisions at combating security threats within the Nigerian maritime space. The study relied on primary and secondary sources of information. The primary sources included the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982, Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation 1988, the Safety of Lives at Sea (SOLAS) Convention 1974, municipal legislations and Judicial decisions. While the secondary sources included books, journal articles, conference proceedings and the internet. It was found that there is an array of international laws addressing maritime safety and security. It was further found that the effectiveness of these international maritime laws in Nigeria is undermined by inadequate implementation traceable to socio-legal, institutional and political issues in the country. The study recommends adoption of functional legal, institutional and policy measures to address the various implementation challenges, address maritime safety and security threats in the Nigerian maritime domain and aid the maximization of the nation’s maritime resources to facilitate development.
Highlights
The 1982 UNCLOS III set the jurisdictional regime for international maritime practice and administration, necessitated by the need to address the problem of maritime boundary disputes among states, which was rampant at the time of its coming into place (Treves, 1958)
The study identified the various security threats undermining effective maritime practice and administration in Nigeria and examined the challenges undermining the effectiveness of the international maritime regime in combating those threats
The study found that international maritime law originated from customary international law as recognized and applied by the Egyptian, Phoenician and Greek civilization, the earliest codification effort being the Rhodian Sea Law while the first international effort at codifying the law of the sea was the 1958 GCLOS and subsequently 1982 UNCLOS under the auspices of the United Nations
Summary
Maritime security is a crucial aspect of maritime practice and administration, which is central to the full realization of the immense potentials of the mari-. The ocean and its resources have no transboundary limits, likewise the various threats to maritime security are transnational in nature As a result, they are addressed through transnational laws at the regional and international arena. The 1982 UNCLOS III set the jurisdictional regime for international maritime practice and administration, necessitated by the need to address the problem of maritime boundary disputes among states, which was rampant at the time of its coming into place (Treves, 1958). Piracy and armed robbery at sea remain the most notorious forms of threat to maritime security. According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), the global maritime community recorded 75 incidents of hostage taking and kidnaping for ransom in 2019, out of which 62 occurred in West Africa, and 8 out of the 9 incidents of attack on vessels was within the Nigerian waters. There is a dearth of literature on the evolution of the law of the sea to ascertain the inherent limitations in the current international maritime regime, its effect on the efficiency of maritime security provisions and the challenges undermining its efficiency in Nigeria
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