NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A riveting, adrenaline-fueled tour of a vast, lawless, and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways—drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil, and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposé, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching.

Policing the Caribbean investigates the emergence of transnational policing practises in response to drug trafficking and organized crime in ten Caribbean territories. The book addresses questions of accountability and explores how understandings of national sovereignty are shifting in the face of domestic and global insecurity.

Maritime security is of increasing importance in a world threatened by terrorism, piracy, and drug-trafficking. This book sets out and evaluates the legal framework regulating the use of force on the oceans, as well as challenges like illegal fishing and environmental damage. It suggests that more flexible rules are needed to safeguard the seas.

Law enforcement at sea has become an increasingly important tool for combating transnational crime. Such law enforcement operations are commonly directed by multinational missions composed of military rather than police forces, and are often carried out in maritime areas not subject to national jurisdiction. Because of these characteristics, maritime law enforcement operations touch upon many unresolved human rights issues. In the present study, counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia and in the Indian Ocean serve as the quintessential example of how law enforcement measures taken at sea may fall short of international human rights standards. An unprecedented number of national and multinational missions have been deployed to counter the phenomenon of piracy off the coast of Somalia and in the region. Their mandate includes the arrest, detention and transfer for prosecution of piracy suspects. The book at hand examines the procedures pertinent to the decision whether to release piracy suspects, prosecute them in the seizing State or transfer them to a third State, and the detention regime pending such decisions. The study provides a critical analysis of the compatibility of these procedures with international law, first and foremost human rights law. Using piracy as an example, it demonstrates that the characteristics of national and multinational law enforcement at sea may lead to a deviation from certain human rights standards – standards that the States in question readily accept and apply in their land-based, territorial law enforcement operations. At the centre of the analysis are two unique case studies, which provide insight into the arrest, detention and transfer procedures in both a multinational context and a purely interstate setting. This work is a valuable contribution to legal scholarship dealing with the human rights dimension of maritime law enforcement operations. It is a useful, timely and innovative resource for both academics and legal practitioners alike, or any person interested in the applicability and scope of human rights norms in the maritime context.

As the threats posed by organised crime and terrorism persist, law enforcement authorities remain under pressure to suppress the movement, or flows, of people and objects that are deemed dangerous. This collection provides a broad overview of the challenges and trends of the policing of flows. How these threats are constructed and addressed by governments and law enforcement agencies is the unifying thread of the book. The concept of flows is interpreted broadly so as to include the trafficking of illicit substances, trade in antiquities, and legal and illegal migration, including cross-border travel by members of organised crime groups or ‘foreign fighters’. The book focuses especially on the responses of governments and law enforcement agencies to the changing nature and intensity of flows. The contributors comprise a mix of lawyers, sociologists, historians and criminologists who address both formal legal and practical, on-the-ground approaches to the policing of flows. The volume invites reflection on whether the existing tool kit of governments and law enforcement agencies is adequate in this changing environment and how it could be modernised, for example, by increased reliance on technology or by reappraising the role of the private sector. As such, the book will be useful not only for academics and practitioners who work on security-related matters, but also more generally to those who are interested in what the near-term future of policing is likely to look like and how the balance between law enforcement on the one hand and human rights and civil liberties on the other can be achieved.

The fact that the Montego Bay Convention has been only ratified by 37 States at present and that it will be some time before the 60 ratifications required by Article 308 are achieved has not prevented states from acting in accordance with the rules drawn up by the Conference. Close on one hundred states have established either exclusive economic zones broadly modelled on Part V or 200-nautical-mile fishery zones and drawn on the principles laid down for exploiting living resources. Although these laws have been formulated unilaterally by states, international custom, since the judgement by the International Court of Justice in the Fisheries Case of 18 December 1951, is derived from concordant national rules. This shift began even before the Conference ended, and has been consolidated since then. Moreover, the régime governing the sea-bed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction defined by Part XI, which was the stumbling block of the Conference, is subject to transitional arrangements on the basis of two resolutions adopted in the Conference's Final Act, one providing for the establishment of a Preparatory Commission and the other on the preliminary activities of pioneer investors. This two-volume work, an earlier edition of which appeared in French, has been written by a team of experts of international renown. It presents an analysis of the Convention with an additional Chapter on the legal régime governing underwater archaeological and historical objects.

The fact that the Montego Bay Convention has been only ratified by 37 States at present and that it will be some time before the 60 ratifications required by Article 308 are achieved has not prevented states from acting in accordance with the rules drawn up by the Conference. Close on one hundred states have established either exclusive economic zones broadly modelled on Part V or 200-nautical-mile fishery zones and drawn on the principles laid down for exploiting living resources. Although these laws have been formulated unilaterally by states, international custom, since the judgement by the International Court of Justice in the Fisheries Case of 18 December 1951, is derived from concordant national rules. This shift began even before the Conference ended, and has been consolidated since then. Moreover, the regime governing the sea-bed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction defined by Part XI, which was the stumbling block of the Conference, is subject to transitional arrangements on the basis of two resolutions adopted in the Conference's Final Act, one providing for the establishment of a Preparatory Commission and the other on the preliminary activities of pioneer investors. This two-volume work, an earlier edition of which appeared in French, has been written by a team of experts of international renown. It presents an analysis of the Convention with an additional Chapter on the legal regime governing underwater archaeological and historical objects.