The aftershocks of the stranding
International channels in public international law. The Suez Canal
The international channels are artificial waterways that connect two maritime spaces, and that by their very nature, are subject to a international legal regime.
When they join two rivers with each other or a river with the sea, the legal regime that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provided for inland waters.
And, in the beginning, when they joined two seas passing through the territory of a single State, this regime also applied to them; They were subject, after all, to the sovereignty of said State.
This regime was not the most appropriate when the great maritime canals were built.
The volume of transnational investments and the need, above all, to guarantee the free transit of ships with different flags informed a legal regime of internationalization that has progressively been qualified in favor of the territorial State.
the channels of Kiel, Panama and Suez respond to this paradigm.
The Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, and since 1888, it was governed by the Constantinople Convention, which guaranteed freedom of passage for commercial and warships, while ensuring the neutrality of the canal in times of conflict.
In 1956, the Egyptian authorities nationalized the Universal Suez Canal Company, concessionaire of the exploitation of the canal since its origins, and unilaterally assumed the consolidated obligations for the benefit of freedom of navigation.
According to the doctrine, freedom of navigation and neutrality in the event of conflict provided for in the treaty constitute an “objective international regime” operating for the benefit of third States.
But the truth is that the 1969 Vienna Convention, when regulating the effects of treaties with respect to them, does not accept such a conceptualization.
The benefits that may arise for third States are based either on their accession to the treaty or on an extra-conventional link by assent or recognition.
The historical importance of the Suez Canal
El Ever Given running aground has highlighted the importance of the canal for the global economy.
When connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, constitutes a authentic portal between East and West.
There have been many countries that have tried to control the enclave; Its geostrategic value explains the historical conflict in the region
To finance its construction, the Ottoman authority in Egypt chose to sell a majority stake to the United Kingdom, a stake that would lead years later to the adoption of the Constantinople regime.
During the 20th century, there were many attempts to break it.
In World War I, Turkish troops attempted to attack the canal from the east, and in World War II, the Afrika Korps did the same but from the west.
However, The Suez Canal remained under British control until Nasser nationalized it..
Tensions with Israel, the United Kingdom and France, whose presence in the enclave dates back much further, almost caused a war.
But joint pressure from the United States and the UN finally sponsored detente.
Present
Today, The Suez Canal is the jugular of international trade.
Ten percent of world trade uses this route. Without the canal, traffic between East and West would be forced to circumvent the African continent, which would increase costs, lengthen journeys and expose goods to piracy or simply to inclement weather.
Therefore, in 2015 it was decided to expand the channel.
The works took just one year, employed forty-one thousand full-time workers and dredged around two hundred and fifty million cubic meters of soil (the equivalent, it is said, of one hundred Egyptian pyramids).
The reform was so profitable that Eight days were enough to return local investments.
In an initial estimate, it was calculated that annual income would rise from five billion to thirteen thousand by 2023, and to this we would also have to add the regional development that the expansion brought with it: around one million new jobs.
In summary, the Suez Canal is currently configured as one of the best exponents of economic diplomacy: a shared multilateral space capable of conditioning not only the growth, but also the development of the global economy.
The consequences of the blockade of the Suez Canal
On March 24, 2021, the Ever Given cargo ship ran aground in the canal and blocked the route. But it is not the first time that the channel has been closed.
Between 1967 and 1975, during the hostilities between Egypt and Israel, the canal became a border and trapped more than a dozen ships inside, known as Yellow Fleet.
On this occasion it has only been six days, and we can affirm that the impact of the blockade has been much greater, also taking into account the weakening that the pandemic has caused in the supply chain.
Although the globalization process was not as advanced then as it is now, the number of affected ships has risen to approximately four hundred.
Economic Cost
Allianz has estimated that The economic cost of the stoppage could reach between six and ten million dollars.
To the nine and a half billion dollars that are collected in a single day, other factors must be added such as compensation for delays, the deterioration of goods or the extraordinary expenditure on fuel of those who have chosen to deviate and take the African route.
The price of a barrel of Brent has also suffered a significant increase, around three percent of its previous value.
Everything seems to predict a context of high litigation in the future, and clarifying responsibilities will not be an easy task.
At first, the accident was attributed to a certain lack of visibility and strong gusts of wind, issues that would be redirected to force majeure if they could be proven.
However, the head of the Suez Canal Authority seems to point to technical failures in the machinery that ended up affecting maneuverability, a situation in which blame could be determined.
The head of the Simulation Center, for his part, maintains that the pilots are trained to deal with the most adverse weather situations, and to this crossfire of accusations we should add, finally, the organizational complexity of the shipping company: The owner of the boat is Japanese, but the operator resides in Taiwan, the technical aspects were carried out by a company of German origin, the flag was Panamanian and the crew on board, finally, was mostly Indian
Everything suggests that the aftershocks of the incident will continue for quite some time.
Graduated in Law and Public Administration and Management from the University of Seville, I found my vocation for International Relations a few years ago, which led me to pursue a postgraduate degree in Diplomacy at the Barcelona Center for International Studies. I like international politics, languages and, above all, writing; I have published on several occasions on legal topics, but now I seek to do so in this field, underlining the philosophical (and even moralizing) function of the discipline. I promise it will be mild, do you follow me?
