Today I was because it would be glamorous from Brazil.
Would we go? We spent seven years in the Brazilian army and then worked for Think Tank, which is called it.
When he was looking at military technology, the defence industry and maritime issues.
And then he went on and I went to Oxford to work on his doctorate on the arms trade.
And today he's going to talk about maritime security. I can't give you that much.
Should I just your. You know, I kind of think of rumoured for for the invitation and I just hope you have to be up to the expectations.
And so kind of before coming to to Oxford. I serve in the army and I worked in this think tank dealing pretty much of international security issues.
So I was always talking to people in the military in Brazil.
And that topic that always came out, particularly among people in the Navy, was that the jurisdictional waters of Brazil,
from the point of view, particularly of the Navy, were more than jurisdictional waters.
So legally it was about jurisdiction, exclusive rights to exploit economic resources.
But there they were clearly talking about something else was something more than jurisdiction.
They were considering the Brazilian jurisdictional waters as part of the territory of the country over which Brazil could extend its sovereignty.
So there is a difference between what was happening from a legal point of view, from a practical point of view.
And that raises a series of questions. Right. Is that legitimate?
How are things in other countries? Is it possible that you have exclusive rights to exploit economic resources without having political sovereignty?
How to enforce those rights. And how these ideas emerged in the first place.
So the the main underlying questions here are do the oceans belong to anyone?
And can the state sovereignty be extended overseas just like it covers land areas?
A brief anecdote. We remember that in 2007, a Russian mini submarine planted this flag in the Arctic Ocean seabed at a depth of more than 4000 metres.
And this event can be interpreted in many different ways, can be framed in many different ways.
But at least kind of from my point of view, this out of this, that tension reflects a tension between two different principles.
And these are the principles of molybdenum or free sea and matic laws.
And close to I'm not the first person to use these concepts in this way, but I've been trying just to flesh out this idea.
So first, get to the piece of matter.
Libya was created by Hugo Grotius in the early 17th century, and he stated that oceans are free space, they don't belong to anyone.
And state sovereignty is limited to land areas and it can be extended over the seas,
but only over a narrow strip, a space which nowadays is known as the territorial sea.
The other concept made it globally close to sea was created by John Selden and it's the opposite.
So he stated that states can extend over, can extend their sovereignty over the seas, just like over land areas.
So the sea is not necessarily a space in which inter-state disputes only reverberate.
They can be an object of disputes in themselves.
In practice, from my point of view, the principle of modern liberal with dominance until the end of World War Two,
there was a consensus on the three nautical mile route,
but that was a quite small area as a proportion of the oceans of the globe, and this has been giving way since then, the more about you.
So these are principle of microcosm. Not necessarily consciously, according to which some of these may be extended over the seas.
But at the same time, the nature of the sovereignty, the nature of sovereignty over the sea is different.
We're talking about exclusive rights to exploit economic resources.
So countries, from a legal point of view, have what a what we could call economic sovereignty, but not political sovereignty.
But in many so countries, for example,
can't prevent the movement of ships or aircraft in the exclusive economic zone or installation of submarine cables.
But in many cases, there is a fine line between these two things.
How is it possible to enforce economic sovereignty without political sovereignty?
So under the international law,
countries couldn't would it be able to prohibit Arab countries are doing military exercises in their exclusive economic zones.
That would be illegal. But but in some countries, this is not the case.
So in Brazil, for example, there is a law saying that countries can't do military exercises in the Brazilian.
These adds without the prior consent of Brazil.
And in the case of China,
even if any military aircraft or ship could enter into the exclusive economic zone of China without prior consent of the Chinese government,
even if it's not part of if it's not taking part in military exercises.
So until eight years ago, the sea was an area on which there is no state sovereignty, only over a quite small area.
But today it is. Why has this happened after the end of war?
Right. Two The sort of boom of research concerning the economic potential of the seas,
fishing resources and on something on the existence of what is now called the Continental Shelf.
Until then, going to fishing was pretty much the only resource exploited at the sea.
But progressively there were new discoveries of oil and gas reserves and the sea subsoil mineral resources, gold,
diamonds at sea and the existence of the continental shelf is that begun to be
used to legitimise interests for exclusive rights of exploiting those resources,
because the continental shelf will be just the natural continuation of a country's landmass.
That wasn't the interpretation used. But what was the first country to make a clear claim of sovereignty over larger parts of the sea?
It was the United States through the Truman Proclamation in 1945.
So the United States declared that the natural resources of its entire continental shelf were from then on, under its sovereignty.
And, of course, this led poorer countries to do exactly the same thing. Right.
So Mexico, the month later, showed a similar statement.
Argentina in 1946. Then Chile, Peru and Ecuador.
But in in the case of these countries, they declared sovereignty not only on the seabed and subsoil,
but also on the water at a distance of 200 nautical miles, mainly for two reasons.
First, because they were much more interested in the exploitation of fishing resources.
And second, because the continental shelf in the Pacific goes to South America, it's quite narrow.
So it was in that context that negotiations to create the first law of the Sea took place.
So far, conventions were open. In 1958.
And together they formed the anglers. But there are three main point that is from my point of view.
At about that conference, the first one, the states will have full sovereignty over the territorial sea.
But what was until then, sort of custom our international law, what was then codified into international law?
But there is no agreement on the limits of that.
The second point can adjust into the territories.
There will be a place called the contiguous zone, which is considered essential to guarantee to protect the sovereignty over the territories.
In this case, there was a limit of up to 12 nautical miles.
And the third point, there would be exclusive right to exploit resources in the continental shelf.
But again, there are no specific limits. So countries narrow continental shelves, holding everything else constant.
We're not being bound as countries with this large, right, continental, wide continental shelf.
And there is a second convention in 1960.
But it doesn't result in any substantial agreement is like just rather going to one of the immediate causes of that second
conference where tensions between Iceland and the UK concerning the exploitation of fishing resources around Iceland.
So Iceland unilaterally declared that it was extending its territorial sea to 12 nautical miles.
The British government disagreed and sent military vessels as an escort to fishing to British fishing vessels.
And this that became known as the first Cold War. Another case was between Brazil and Frank.
They're both concerned about Lopes, and the Brazilian government had declared its sovereignty over its continental shelf,
but its intent were French fishing vessels capturing fishing lobsters along the Brazilian coast.
And the Brazilian government said that they couldn't do that right, because lobsters, they move always, almost always touching the seabed.
So they were owned on Brazilian territory, but because they were there on the seabed, not in the water.
And but the French government made the case that that wasn't true for lobster.
Sometimes the junk food they leave, they're not in the seabed anymore.
They're in the water as they are underwater. They're not in territory under Brazilian control of Brazilian sovereignty.
So the whole situation eventually was solved in a peaceful way.
A threat. That's how bizarre situations can be created by quite strict interpretation of the law.
It almost led to a war. So in the 1970s, a third conference was convened.
Then in 1977, there was an event that was essential to the eventual outcome of the conference.
But the United States extended its exclusive fishing zone 200 nautical miles and gave
reciprocity to countries doing the same thing they would be able to fish in the American view.
In 1982 and close three was open to signatures.
The make changes in comparison to at least one were for what we do for the first
thing with clear limits for the sovereignty of the sea to 12 nautical miles,
12 nautical miles of limit plus 12 of country was on.
The second thing is that rights, exclusive rights for economic exploitation were being extended to the water so
they wouldn't cover only the seabed and subsoil with everything the water,
even even above the water. But I mean, there are not many things about the what the winds mean.
And and the second thing was that there was a concept of a legal continental shelf was created, so there would be a limit of up to 200 nautical miles.
So that was an equaliser. So countries like Chile and Peru.
Right. Will be clearly benefited by by these countries if narrow continental shelves.
The third thing it's going to countries could require in some cases,
in many cases, the continental shelf goes beyond the limit for 200 nautical miles.
So in those cases, countries could request their recognition of that additional part beyond 200 nautical miles.
But you have exclusive rights of exploiting resources only over the seabed and subsiding in that additional area.
And I third in a fourth point was that the the use of the seabed is subsoil beyond national jurisdiction,
beyond areas under national jurisdiction should be regulated in all the seabed and subsoil beyond.
The national jurisdiction is known as area in capital letters.
So that's the situation today.
And then the war, what you said sovereign over only a decent three nautical miles and currently up to 200 nautical miles.
And this can be extended further. In many cases. Just a diagram of all those limits or a legal thing and in terms of jurisdiction over taxes.
So this recurring situation. Is it possible to see there?
Yeah. Uh, it's about 39.
39% of the seats are now under state jurisdiction.
39%. So if internship is not considered, this area is equivalent to the land areas of the world.
Other states are, too. So for every square kilometre of sovereignty over land, over the land, there is an outer square kilometre of jurisdiction.
In this case, over the seas. So this is a different way of looking at the extension of state sovereignty.
You have the 15 countries with the largest used in the world, and I have divided them into four groups.
So the first group and these countries having large is that because they are quite big.
United States, Russia, Brazil, etc. We have countries which are not that big, but they have long coastline.
So for this reason they have this large is ex New Zealand, Chile, Japan have countries largely that because they have a lot of overseas territories.
France, the UK and Denmark for going to France is the second largest.
Is that right in the north and the UK had 51.
And finally we have tiny countries like Micronesia, for example, have a large.
Is that because they have many, many islands and these islands are not concentrated here.
Spreads scattered over like a wide part.
I'm going to focus on the cases of China and Brazil, but just like to say a couple of things about the case in the UK,
not only because we are here, but because it's relevant for the case of Brazil.
So the UK has the FT largest is I think the world ranking of most around overseas territories.
So British territories in the South Atlantic and in the Caribbean, including Bermuda, are about two thirds of the British visit.
And only the Falklands here and South Sudan and South Sandwich Islands are both 30% are the British U.S.
So if the Argentine occupation of the Falklands in 1982 had implied the loss of sovereignty of the UK over the centuries, the UK have lost 30% of it.
Is that. But if you're going to two maps, this is kind of the extreme south of the South Atlantic.
And we have here these areas are the request is for the recognition of the extended continental shelf.
So this little line here is the 200 nautical mile limit and their request is for extending its continued to through Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina.
You said that here there is an overlapping area between the request of Argentina and the UK
and Argentina has also request the recognition of claim territories in Antarctica here.
The UK didn't do that and but Norway, Norway has done the same thing.
So Norway already has this island here. And for this reason, one of the reasons why it can start growth in Antarctica.
And here we have a request of the UK for Ascension Island.
Here we are on the other side of the Atlantic and just like to draw our attention here to to case of Namibia and Madagascar.
So it's kind of this point here because in Madagascar is about 800 nautical miles from the coast of Madagascar.
So we're talking about large parts of the sea that could be under states jurisdiction.
So this is the only these areas bigger than the country itself.
So China.
So China has increased inside of 900,000 square kilometres is quite small, right, in comparison to the country's size, economy, political influence,
population, etc. and probably is a major element in the ongoing disputes in the East China Sea and in the South China Sea finances.
That's quite small. So China hasn't benefited from endless three, as have other most of other major countries in the world Brazil,
the US, Russia, France, the UK, among others.
Let me first going to really look at some disputes here in the East China Sea and then after in the South China Sea.
But we have this area here. So China claims sovereignty over, I think, Senkaku Islands currently under Japanese control.
And if China were successful in this claim, that would increase the Chinese side by 8%.
But only those tiny territories. Can I.
Here we have another one, right.
Well, you know Shima so the, the Japanese territory recognised the Japanese, even by China.
But China argues that, that it's an echo and it shouldn't have a right to an exclusive economic zone.
You should have the right to a territorial sea. Right.
But not an exclusive economic zone. Why?
Maybe for two reasons. Kind of includes the Article 21 event, which says that rocks can only have.
And is that if they can sustain human habitation or if they have an economic activity of their own right,
and that islets are only islets if they are above water, high tides.
But this is what CHANATRY Shima. Right.
It's that kind of Egyptian sovereignty over these hats.
He has that large he that Chinese make the case that issued it.
So that should be part of international waters.
So any country could exploit resources in that part if they requested that to the International Seabed Authority.
And I was talking to kind of to you about two years ago, I was talking to people in the Navy in Brazil exactly about this case.
We were trying to think what the position of Brazil should be on this.
Hypothetically. And can we conclude that that kind of holding everything else constant in this case,
Brazil should support Japan because we're going to Brazil is quite similar case to a bunch of rocks in the middle of nowhere and hasn't.
Is that around those rocks? The this one in the South China Sea as we know it today.
Disputes are only half over the verso and they Spratly Islands.
And that's probably going to a very important point here,
is that going to countries in the South China Sea are much weaker than countries in the East China Sea.
So we have there in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, a massive U.S. naval presence, and we don't have that.
You have kind of much weaker countries.
If you look at the evolution of kind of military expenditures and military expenditures are not a perfect proxy for a military power,
but it can give us a rough idea. And here we have kind of the blue line, the military faces of China in 1994.
The military expenditures of China were about 70% of all the other countries in the South China Sea combined.
And now it's four times. Higher.
And I just think that this proved a very important point, because at time, time is on China's side.
It can wait. It doesn't have to do things in a hurry.
A lot of countries are running against time because China is becoming rather be much more much more powerful.
So the case of Brazil. So that is either Brazil has 3.7 metres square kilometres.
It's slightly bigger than the east out of Chile and about half of the British use it.
You has a long coastline, but it has few territories.
Situated just a few third, only few territory. Situated at a great distance from its coast.
And these are these archipelago here in Montenegro.
And these were here, this Saint Peter and Simple Archipelago.
And this area, these areas here in darker blue and red, are the request of Brazil to their recognition of its extended continental shelf.
And their red areas are those which haven't been recognised.
So the country submitted resubmitted request and it's kind of currently being analysed.
And I'd just like to draw our attention to the case of some feature and simple archipelago here because it's this, right?
It's about the size of a football pitch in the middle of nowhere, because Brazil has sovereignty over these rocks.
It has a right to an east around it. And this is 450,000 square kilometres.
400. This is about only these. That around these islands is half of the whole Chinese.
Is that. So try to understand things from the point of view of China, it seems in fact.
Right. If I if I'm someone in the Chinese government, look at something like these are the situation looking at that issue,
it seems a bit over then, but the points kind of rocks don't have a right to Chinese at all as they can't sustain human habitation.
So the Navy in Brazil created the brilliant idea of creating in 1988 a research station.
So there is always someone there, usually for researchers.
So they spend two biologists usually. So they spent two weeks there doing a research and then they go back home and then another group comes.
And then they go back home and again and again and again. So there's always someone there.
So it's technically. Is it?
And the country has a large area under his jurisdiction.
The name, of course, is interested in having more resources, more money to to protect it.
But at the same time, money is great. Budget is quite limited.
So much to explain to the rest of the government. You explain to people there that a Navy need needs more resources.
So someone came up with a very good idea. So the Amazon in Brazil is much more of a rainforest or hydrographic base or something.
The Amazon is a sort of colony of the rest of the country.
For the rest of Brazil going to be havens towards Amazon as though it were sort of colony that has to be occupied to be protected virtually,
of course, going to from other countries and just protecting the Amazon strong, not only in the military but among the population as a whole.
There are surveys showing that. So a naval admiral used the symbolic power of the Amazon and coined this phrase here, the blue Amazon.
And this thing has become a buzzword.
We're going to everywhere we go in Brazil conferences, people are talking about pluralism and it has become quite popular.
So we have slides like the going to have attended some presentations by Navy officers and they showed slides like these.
So Blue Amazon, they're about as large as rich as the green Amazon.
About half of the natural territory have others like these.
Right, as well. So kind of those yellow dots are offshore drilling sites.
Right. And we have here the huge territories in the South Atlantic.
And they're not I wouldn't say they're perceived as a threat,
but it's more looking an inconvenience compared to the network here to control the central part of the South Atlantic.
And here we have, according to the Navy, what the maritime strategic areas are.
And it covers not only the Brazilian jurisdictional waters, but actually the coast of Atlantic and parts of the Caribbean,
but then includes the coast of countries in African countries in the South Atlantic.
And another thing we can do is compare the size of the president, he said, to the size of these out of other countries in the South Atlantic.
So a couple of things. Our figures are interesting.
So the events of Brazil and U.K. are pretty much equivalent.
So these are these are from the UK, only the South Atlantic.
And I'm thinking about half of these ads in the South Atlantic are either Brazilian or British.
And this could be extended even more because these are requests for recognition of the extent of continental shelf.
Right. So the area requested to date is larger than the request from Brazil,
and it could be extended even further because kind of the UK hasn't uh, made requests for all its territories in the South Atlantic.
And so it's kind of friendly.
And the kids in Brazil kind of there is an area in which the Navy, alongside other ministries, have been conducting geological research.
And if a place called wouldn't arise, you can see it's lighter, right?
With a shallow, shallower and uh,
we have kind of some news was published in the Telegraph because they found granite in a place where running is not supposed to be found.
But it's good to see scientific discovery and kind of.
Brazil requested exclusive rights to conduct research and exploit resources in this area.
And other countries are doing exactly the same thing in other parts of the ocean.
Again, this is not about sovereignty, right?
We kind of just kind of think that things are moving towards more areas under state jurisdiction, not fewer areas, and even in this case.
So in this case, Brazil will have exclusive rights to conduct activities in this place for 15 years, and this could be extended for 15 years.
It is sort of an economic partition of the seas, and these are going to areas beyond national jurisdiction.
So changing cultural. I may be wrong, but I think maybe this process might change the nature of naval warfare.
In the past is going to see areas where usually places where interesting disputes reverberated,
but they were not the object of disputes in themselves. But states have been progressively extending their jurisdiction over the sea,
and they need to permanently occupy those areas, either with naval vessels or maybe surveillance systems.
So there is a fine line between economic sovereignty and political sovereignty,
because the main point here can how to protect areas under state jurisdiction without having political sovereignty.
So in the case of Brazil, for example, there is a project of a surveillance system to enforce its jurisdiction in its jurisdictional waters.
It's called the Blue Amazon Weekend Blue and Blue Amazon Management System.
All requests are kind of what happens in the case of small countries like Micronesia.
Quite tiny, tiny, tiny countries. They have no capacity and they never have capacity to enforce its jurisdiction over their jurisdictional waters.
So what can we have? We have large areas firmly under jurisdiction with no de facto jurisdiction.
What should they do to deal for the protection of those areas?
And finally, we have areas that carry the best, a little or no relevance,
and they may gain importance around and got more relative importance or like the Falklands French territories in the Pacific.
In in these in theory might change the relative importance of these very important right to self-defence in the South Pacific.
And yeah, that's it. Thank you very much.