The Legal Frameworks Arising from Using Armed Guards Onboard Ships: Challenges and the Way Forward

Abstract

This paper will look at the changing role of Privately Contracted Armed Security Professionals, particularly national authority over their operations in international treaties, and describe the plethora of legal frameworks and industry-led policies that have arisen in the marine security. This will begin by illustrating the emergence of corporate naval security alongside the framework of the contemporary maritime industry’s development. It will next assess the primary conceptual model laws in international norms that serve as sources of law for corporate maritime security actions, specifically UNCLOS, SUA, SOLAS, UN Firearms Protocol, as well as the Principle of Self-Defense and the Doctrine of Necessity. It will go into the tests of establishing whether, as alleged by some coastal state-governments, the presence of uniformed soldiers on board a commercial ship constitutes an impediment to innocuous passage or requires prior information. The entirety of the paper will discuss how the industry reacted to the surge in the maritime security field, including the emergence of legal framework, industry-led rules, behavioural standards, and certificate programmes designed to bring management gaps left by hard-law structures and restore stability, supervision, and responsibility to the maritime industry. The “Montreux Document, the International Code of Ethics for Private Security Services, and International Maritime Organization Circulars” are a few examples of this kind of advice. The report will culminate with a review of results and predictions for the legislative developments in the industry going forward.