Defending the invisible: The protection of submarine communications cables under international law

This poster goes into the lacking protection regime under international law of the sea for the protection of underwater critical maritime infrastructure (CMI), the latter including both submarine pipelines transporting oil, gas or other important resources, or communications and high voltage power cables, both irreplaceable for our current societies and way of life. Yet despite this importance, the international legal regime is almost non-existent, largely resulting from the fact that the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention was adopted at the height of the satellite communication era and before the modern technology-driven world took shape. As a result, while we have limited rules available for protection and response in the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone or EEZ grants to all states the freedom to lay - and thus operate and maintain - submarine cables and pipelines. Creative treaty interpretation as well as new and original state practice are required to fill this lacuna and may yet offer a chance of better defending this critical infrastructure in these pressing geopolitical times.