What I Am Reading: "The Outlaw Ocean" by Ian Urbina

I found this book accidentally after being tipped off about the similarly-named The Outlaw Sea. Both books are by journalists, both of whom I have seen before in my trawling of longform.org. I am a big fan of nautical topics, and Longform has enabled me to reach beyond the Edwardian liner wrecks of my childhood interest to more contemporary nautical issues.

It was surprising, then, that I hadn't heard of this book until now. Ian Urbina wrote a series on The Outlaw Ocean for the New York Times, which was adapted and expanded into this book. Some of the below-mentioned stories can be found there, for anyone with a subscription or a proxy site. Urbina's reporting chronicles how the ocean is a lawless place. A note about the "dystopian seascape of the western Pacific Ocean," can stand in for the whole:

"The region is teeming with super trawlers, state-subsidized poacher fleets, mile-long drift nets, and predator buoys and is being battered by mega cyclones, ocean acidification, rising sea levels, warming marine temperatures, and a Texas-sized gyre of floating trash." (Ch. 2)

The chapters each cover some element of lawbreaking or lawlessness, with heavy focus on environmental and labor violations by fishing fleets. International maritime borders also play a large role in many of the chapters, as well as tangled jurisdiction and enforcement that can stymie what laws do exist. In many cases these factors facilitate the above-mentioned lawless dystopia, but in some cases they abet creative or necessary activism, or at least interesting stories. These chapters show their origins as separate NYT stories in a series; but in this summary I have synthesized them, out of order, into three larger topics: chapters on crime, chapters on activism, and chapters on enforcement or other larger nation-state involvement in the world's oceans. It's not a perfect synthesis: some chapters contain elements of each.

Crime is, of course, the most frequent focus. Some chapters focus on a wide subset of crime, such as the chapter on killings at sea. This is framed around the discovery of a mysterious video, which shows several fishing ships surrounding a sinking vessel, with men on board firing at and killing men in the water. I had heard of this video before, but did not realize that an investigator named Karsten Von Hoesslin had actually tracked down some of the ships, sailors, and victims involved, though the perpetrators were not brought to justice. That is a recurring theme in the book's discussion of crime: perpetrators are not brought to justice, because nation-states, international organizations, and flag registries are often not willing to pursue anything that doesn’t concern their national waters. Data is murky and often held at scale only by private security organizations, but NGOs tally wide-scale murder at sea every year, often resulting from inter- or intra-ship fishing disputes or piracy. This chapter also covers a result of the violence: proliferation of seaborne mercenaries used by companies large and small for security on their ships. These men are often housed on floating armory ships, where they may be stranded for a considerable time before deployment.

Mercenaries are not the only ones who may be stranded on ships. Seafarers who work for a company that goes under or has economic issues are the subject of a chapter on the sea as a prison, as they may be stranded in bureaucratic limbo in port, without the documentation to either go ashore or the resources to be sent home. Recently, international organizations have pushed for shipping companies to carry insurance against this possibility. Other imprisonment can come to stowaways, who are occasionally "rafted" by being left in the middle of the ocean. This cruelty results from the hassle that ships find in ports from showing up with undocumented travelers. However, for those not willing to take this step, stowaways can hold a ship hostage to some extent, as they refuse to leave and cannot be ejected. Some live aboard for considerable periods of time, or make multiple attempts at emigration by stowing.

Returning to the subject of crews: fishing fleets are often the source of abusive labor practices, including debt slavery. Ships are often manned by men who have been swindled by manning companies into signing up for exploitative contracts, victims of human trafficking who have their passports taken away and their pay withheld until their contract is up. These agencies, poorly regulated, provide plausible deniability for ship owners and operators, who are able to disclaim responsibility for illegal procurement of their laborers. The government of the Phillippines is especially called out as a one that could do more on enforcement, as the country supplies a quarter of the world's fishing workers. However, with ships often kept at sea and fishing in areas not tied to the country they are registered to, this is another problem where nobody wants to or is able to take up the responsibility of enforcement.

There are some organizations dedicated to helping seafarers who are trapped in slavery, especially the Catholic charity Stella Maris. Urbina embedded on boats in the Thai fishing fleet. Thailand has a growing middle class and suffered a heavy maritime death toll from Typhoon Gay in 1989. As a result, migrants do most of the work on the Thai fishing fleet. They are often entrapped not only by manning agencies, but by pedestrian swindles like karaoke bars, who trap them in debt when they first arrive in the country. Thailand has tried to crack down on labor violations, but a sail-along Urbina did with the enforcement ships showed that, at the time of writing, enforcement was more about bureaucratic box-checking than engagement with the often cowed and threatened crews. Thailand has taken steps toward improvement, however, after international attention, and their laws themselves are a step forward. There is a chapter on slavery at large and a chapter on manning agencies.

Beyond labor crimes, there are also environmental crimes at sea. International organizations and NGOs tend to focus on these more than they do on labor violations. A chapter on dumping hits dumping of industrial and mining waste from shore, and dumping of sewage and oil from ships, especially cruise ships. This is another cost-saving measure, as otherwise ships must pay to dispose of their engine slurry from burning bunker (a highly viscous fuel). There are a few other forms of dumping covered - many of the first generation of oil platforms are reaching their life expectancy, and there is considerable debate about what to do with them. Should they be recycled into hotels, prisons, or other facilities? Urbina visited a diving resort on an old oil platform, and was not optimistic about the trend catching on. Should they be sunk for reefs or fish hatcheries? Some scientists say that they will still be a source of harmful pollution. Full removal is expensive. Also discussed as a dumper is a scientist named Russ George, who engaged in offshore iron dumping in an attempt to replenish plankton supplies in the Pacific. In another example of the ambiguity of law at sea, this may have been illegal under international law, but he did get permission from the First Nations peoples at the nearby shore in British Columbia. This was later revoked in the face of heavy scientific criticism of his “experiment.”

Theft also exists at sea, sometimes at a large scale: the theft of entire ships. Often this is a more bureaucratic crime than it is an active one, as corruption in port purposefully leads to owners becoming over-leveraged, with a subsequent attempt to acquire their ship through bankruptcy proceedings. It is easy for a stolen ship to have its "face washed" through an auction. The chapter on this is about the interplay between harbor corruption, theft of ships (on paper), and their repossession. This seems like a good opportunity to transition into discussion of enforcement. Urbina interviews a repossession specialist named Max Hardberger, a larger-than-life swashbuckling character from Louisiana. He gets at least one job per year where he must bring a ship from a port to a different jurisdiction, such as one following English common law that may be more favorable to a ship's mortgagors than to its actual owners. He engages in all kinds of shady tactics, such as distracting the ship's guards with parties or prostitutes; but in the stories related here, he is seen as a good guy. He returns a ship to its rightful owner after it is seized for unpaid bribes, and part of the liberation of another ship involves making sure its small claims are paid off first. This line of work shows again how malleable law is at sea, and how both lawbreakers and enforcers can pick and choose which rules to follow.

Chapters often drill down to a few specific examples of their crime in question. Some just focus on specific crime, such as the many crimes of the South Korean Sajo Oyang fishing company, which saw massive safety, environmental, and labor violations. Several wrecks and a mass exodus of debt slaves from one of their ships led New Zealand to act decisively in 2014, expelling all foreign-flagged fishing ships from their national waters. That way, any ship in their waters must be New Zealand-flagged, and thus subject to New Zealand's laws. This was a bold step, and probably cost the New Zealand government considerable income, but the issue faded from public view over time. Flag registration is designed as a main source of enforcement, with ships subject to the laws of the country they are flagged under; but many ships gravitate toward countries like Panama with lax laws and loopholes for crime at sea.

One thing I find interesting about maritime and ocean policy and international relations are how it centers different countries from the usual murderer's row: power players in ocean policy include countries like Greece, Indonesia, and Thailand. A policy innovator is the small Pacific archipelago of Palau, which opted for aggressive enforcement and targeting of illegal fishing in its waters, encompassing cooperation with NGOs and international partners, deployment of satellite-aided technology, and other activity. Over-fishing is another recurring topic in the book, a major environmental and economic threat as fishing fleets move father from their depleted shores with more advanced technology. Palau is a remote country, with a massive amount of water under their jurisdiction, and with many conservation laws. They only had a small fleet of enforcement boats, so they had to work smart in the face of Chinese and Philippine fish poachers. They have considerable income from their tourism industry, a motivator for the protection of their marine life, but this tourism also drives over-consumption of seafood, including endangered fish. Urbina embedded with the enforcers for this story.

Another group of enforcers he embedded with were the Indonesian coast guard, another country with a draconian anti-foreign fishing policy, headed at the time of writing by no-nonsense Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti. Urbina sailed with a captain named Samson, who took captive a seven-ship Vietnamese fishing floatilla, leading to a standoff with the Vietnamese coast guard where an Indonesian sailor was taken captive and needed to be ransomed. This tale demonstrated the literal fluidity of maritime borders, as the Indonesians insisted that they were over 40 miles within their own territory; however, the Vietnamese-Indonesian maritime border had never been agreed to by treaty. Urbina saves some criticism for Pudjiastuti and the Indonesian government, who hold fisherman in internment camps while they face interminable waits to be repatriated. This is one of the most exciting stories in the book.

Another one of the more exciting stories was from when Urbina traveled to Puntland, a semi-autonomous state in Somalia. After the famous Somali piracy of 2012, international forces patrolled the Somali coast, and supported paramilitary forces like the Puntland Maritime Police Force. However, dubious legality again rears its head: the PMPF is funded largely by the U.A.E., and the private security forces that it and the local clans contract with are shared with foreign fishing companies; thus, security forces are largely there to protect foreign fishing vessels and not Somali locals. Puntland licenses fishing ships despite not having the actual authority from the toothless central government to do so, with considerable corruption in the process. Despite not originally intending to focus on it, Urbina pursued the story of a fleet of seven Thai boats that seem to be protected by the government, owned by a family known to the Thai government as frequent labor and environmental violators. Urbina fled the country after it becomes too unsafe for him to work; and the Thai authorities, sensitive after considerable international criticism of their fishing practices, doggedly pursue the ships in question, and are able to liberate some crews and make some arrests, with considerable buck-passing from the rest of the international community.

From these chapters on enforcement, we return to lawbreaking, though of a different variety. Activists use and manipulate maritime laws for their own purposes, for direct action or more symbolic protest. For direct action, two chapters focus on the Sea Shepherd organization, one on their pursuit of the Thunder, an illegal fishing ship, and one on their better-known activity harassing Japanese whaling ships. The chase of the Thunder, depicted in the book's first chapter, went on for 110 days. The ship was on Interpol's list of the worst violators of fishing laws, and the Sea Shepherds tried to shed some of their radical imagery by soliciting support from fishing companies, who resented illegal fishing as unfair competition. A paper chase of the ship's owners yielded mixed results, though practically speaking the ship itself was scuttled after running out of fuel. The book's final chapter has the Sea Shepherds in their more natural environment, as they hassle the Japanese whaling fleet's 2016 season. Japan operates one last factory whaler, and is the only country to whale in international waters. After being sanctioned in the International Court of Justice for it, they simply removed their whaling operations from that court's jurisdiction. Like Russ George mentioned earlier, their illegal activity is classified by them as science, though the Japanese fleet’s invodation is probably more nakedly cynical. Despite finding the fleet in both an international sanctuary and Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone, the chase was was unsuccessful, and the 2017 campaign against the Japanese fleet was called off.

Another form of activism was showcased by Dr. Rebecca Gomperts of the nonprofit Women on Waves. Her ship, the Adelaide, was an Austrian-flagged ship that rendezvoused with women in countries where abortion was illegal, then traveled into international waters to perform medical abortions. The ship was small, and the activity was intended to be symbolic as much as practical, taking advantage of international waters (starting 12 miles from shore) to start conversations on countries' laws. It was also allowed to sail because the ship's clinic was classified as a piece of artwork and not a medical facility. I'm sure there's a dissertation to be written on that.

Another famous activist group at sea was Greenpeace, which took part in the cataloging of the Amazon Reef, a barely-known reef that was threatened by drilling in the area. Drilling companies knew about it, but would not acknowledge it so that Brazil's environmental laws would not impede their progress. Greenpeace dived on the reef in a sub, having to maneuver through Brazilian red tape, to the point where they almost had to travel to launch from French Guiana's waters instead. This chapter had some interesting items about how countries' Exclusive Economic Zones don't always line up with their continental shelves and rights on the sea floor, and how international law establishes that some freedom of speech rights are available to those protesting oil rigs. Greenpeace has engaged in direct action as well: they have dropped large rocks underwater to hamper the activities of bottom-trawlers, who tried and failed to get them for breaking dumping laws.

Finally, for my purposes, there was a discussion of Sealand, a topic I was very interested in when I was a teenager. This is an old WW2 anti-aircraft platform in the English Channel that was taken over by a family and proclaimed as an independent micronation. Originally focusing on broadcasting pirate radio, the Bates family has launched other economic ventures in subsequent years; Urbina thinks though that their survival while other libertarian seasteading projects have failed is because of their limited ambitions, as well as their mythologizing and control of their own narrative. Sealand may have faced a coup and then a counter-coup at one point, but it is hard to tell because the two "factions" were working together again soon without a word on the dispite. In any event, Sealand is out of British territorial waters, and some of their stranger activity, such as the taking of a prisoner at one point, has led to what they claim is de facto diplomatic recognition, though not de jure recognition from any countries. Sealand passports and other items are hot items in the black market, and the "principality" may have ties to organized crime - an interesting update from when I was reading about it ten years ago.

This brief overview of each chapter may have been both too much information and not enough. The book has a lot to say that is of interest: the ocean is a place where overlapping or nonexistent jurisdiction and enforcement can allow people to make their own laws, and can allow might to make right, for better or worse. Some are able to creatively take advantage of this such as Dr. Gomperts; but the Sea Shepherd organization says that they exist to enforce environmental laws (not their own norms, but existing laws) because no one else is willing to do so. Urbina writes that he sometimes feels that his job of revealing abuses is not enough, and the scale of some crimes, like slavery on fishing fleets, is far too vast to tackle at the margins. Indeed, the book impresses the fact that these abuses take place on a scale as massive as the oceans themselves.

One thing I only covered a little in this blog post is how much work he did on the front lines, traveling on fishing fleets and enforcement ships for considerable periods of time, in unpleasant or dangerous conditions. This provides both a personal touch and a small dash of swashbuckling adventure, and many of the stories are exciting reads. However, at other times, the book shows itself to be only the sum of its parts. Some stories mention other stories for chronological reasons or the occasional comparison, but mostly they stand separately, newspaper items sewn together. I have integrated them here by theme and out of chapter order, and I think that the information contained in the book could be mixed and matched and synthesized into a different whole. This is not to express disappointment however, I found the book extremely interesting. Any of the individual stories of interest should be accessible from NYT or other news sites.