Multinational Military Operations at Sea

Abstract

Multinational military operations have extended to the sea. These operations mirror the changing maritime security landscape wherein transnational crime has become one of the most prominent security threats. With this, the traditional war-related role of navies has slowly but steadily been supplanted by a new function: policing the sea. This new role is more often than not carried out by navies working together, either as naval coalitions or as highly integrated naval forces of regional organizations. This chapter describes the ‘legal pluriverse’ in which such multinational military operations at sea take place. It first asserts that such operations are not ‘warfare lite’, but rather determined by peace time law. It then proceeds to take stock of the rules authorizing multinational forces and contributing states to enforce the law at sea. In a last step, the legal bases imposing strictures on the exercise of these enforcement powers are carved out. The chapter concludes that the legal framework governing enforcement jurisdiction at sea is arguably the epitome of a ‘legal pluriverse’, yet the powers are more clearly defined than the strictures attaching to their exercise.