| Summary: | Theoretically, the High Seas are by definition peaceable. Consequently, there is no requirement for security enforcement upon them. Historically, they are also common territory. Movement on them is unrestricted and states are proscribed from exerting power over them. This image of secure oceans and unfettered use of the seas is the ideational basis of international maritime governance and law. And it is also the key enabler of global maritime trade. Practically, however, this image is flawed. There is an observable rise in incidents of maritime insecurity, some of it minor, but much not. For instance, there is evidence that the high seas are being deliberately exploited for criminal and terrorist purposes. The reasons for this are linked to the High Seas Regime. Specifically, its prescription on the use of enforcement power and the interplay between the international law of the regime, and the domestic jurisdictions of individual maritime actors. This situation now challenges both law makers and security practitioners. So, given this paradox between perceived ideals and actual circumstances, how can states adequately provide for their security upon the oceans? Commentators such as Posen and Holmes suggest a return to the classical maritime strategies of Mahan and Corbett. They compare the oceans to ungoverned or undergoverned space on land, and posit the need for 'command of the commons' . While unashamedly antithetical to the concept of 'free seas', this also ignores the postmodern separation of the delivery of security from the successful practice of warfare. In strategy terms, the ways of achieving the latter (i.e. decisive military action) are not available in the political space of the former. The means, however, (i .e. seapower) are the same. Referencing Till's work on post-modern seapower, and acknowledging that Freedom of the Sea will remain the central tenet of the High Seas Regime, this thesis proposes that the two traditional political narratives of the oceans - the co-operation space or the conflict space - are diverging. And that a third narrative, the Maritime Security Space is emerging between them. In it, the intervention rights available during periods of cooperation, currently limited to situations of piracy, human trafficking and illegal broadcasting, will be unrepresentative of the range of insecurity to be found.
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