Missed opportunities? Enhancing maritime safety through the EU’s 2023 maritime package

by Christian Bueger, Jan Stockbruegger & Vonintsoa Raffaly The European Union is a major player in ensuring the safety of marine transport. Given the importance of its members as port states and flag states and the size of its shipping companires – which control nearly 30 percent of the world merchant fleet (in gross tonnage) … Read more

Shipping risks: Lessons from Wakashio disaster for island states – Event Summary

The Charles Telfair Centre, in partnership with the University of Copenhagen and the SafeSeas network for maritime security research, hosted a public event on “Shipping Risks: Lessons from the Wakashio for Western Indian Ocean Islands” on Friday, August 18, 2023 in Mauritius. Over 100 guests attended the event, which showcased the latest research on shipping … Read more

Maritime security is one of the new blue paradigms in ocean politics – new article

Global ocean politics has continuously been evolving, and maritime security is part of that development. A new article, co-authored by Christian Bueger, shows how maritime security is related to debates on the blue economy, ocean health, and blue justice – three other key ‘blue paradigms’. Thinking through how maritime security connects and contributes to the … Read more

New Policy Brief – ‘Maritime security sector governance and reform’

SafeSeas’ Tim Edmunds and Scott Edwards collaborated with the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF) on ‘Maritime security sector governance and reform’ (MSSG/R). The policy brief, available here, is a backgrounder document intended to provide a consideration of the challenges and opportunities of security sector reform and governance in the maritime sector. The maritime … Read more

SafeSeas directors visit Indian Ocean Commission

During a field visit, SafeSeas directors, Christian Bueger and Tim Edmunds, visited the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC). They met with the secretary general of the organization, H.E. Prof Vêlayoudom Marimoutou, as well as Raj Mohabeer, commissioner in charge of maritime security. The discussions firstly focused on the current state of political affairs in the Western … Read more

Researcher presents at maritime situational awareness meeting hosted by Italian navy

Maritime Situational and Domain Awareness (MDA) is one of the key solutions in the maritime security tool box and one of the core themes of SafeSeas research. Since almost 20 years the Italian navy facilitates one of the most important international mechanisms for MDA, known as the Virtual-Regional Maritime Traffic Center and the Trans-Regional Maritime … Read more

SafeSeas researchers present at international maritime security forums

In November 2022 SafeSeas researchers attend several important international maritime security forums. Dr. Jan Stockbruegger will be attending the 50th Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE) meeting in Bahrain. He will be providing an academic perspective to the event, drawing on a recent research article on maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean. He argues that … Read more

New research project on the harms of maritime piracy

By Bryan Peters & Letizia Paoli Maritime piracy constitutes one of the most serious “blue crimes” (e.g., Bueger & Edmunds, 2020) and represents a significant threat in many parts of the world, such the Gulf of Guinea and the waters off the Horn of Africa. Although the total number of reported incidents has recently declined, … Read more