Maritime military activity remains a problem area, presenting a serious potential threat to peace on a regional and global scale. ![]() In the case of intelligence gathered at sea, whether a state can take action will depend on whether it is in compliance with international law, particularly UNCLOS. However, the offense can only be prosecuted where the state has jurisdiction. ![]() National espionage law may also include various categories of sensitive information, including those related to national security, economic, political, scientific, military, or personal privacy. 4 Virtually every country has provisions in its national security, criminal, and other statutes that make espionage against the state, private companies, or individuals an offense. It is worth noting that the act of espionage itself is not a violation of international law. Moreover, information itself is inherently neutral but, when gathered for one purpose, may still be utilized for a variety of others. This can be applied in scientific, economic, or strategic contexts, requiring further clarifications on the means or purpose of collection to determine its status and legitimacy. ‘Espionage’, or spying, is the illegal obtaining or possession of any of the foregoing.įor purposes of discussion, the most inclusive and neutral term is probably ‘information’. ‘Intelligence’ is the analysis and significance of information in this example an assessment that the noise information might identify a new class of submarine. ‘Information’ is a collection or coalition of data related to a specific subject such as time, location, oceanographic conditions, ships in the area, or other facts related to a particular noise source. Within the intelligence community, ‘data’ refers to individual facts, such as a name, or sea temperature and salinity in a particular location. While the media tends to sensationalize collection of intelligence at sea as ‘espionage’ or ‘spying’, referring to any intelligence-gathering vehicle as ‘spy ships’ or planes, there is considerable divergence of legal opinion as to whether any particular event could be defined as research, intelligence collection, or espionage. Had the clandestine part of his life been public knowledge at the time, one can only imagine lively discussions which could have taken place around the table in the presence of so many leading international experts on intelligence gathering and espionage. 3 He was also an international lawyer, deeply committed to the principles of UNCLOS as he saw them. 2 He had, in fact, been the US Navy’s ‘ocean spy chief’, involved in many intelligence-gathering and espionage operations, including recovering lost ships, submarines, and weapons systems, and electronic ‘bugging’ of Soviet Navy telecommunications cables under the Sea of Okhotsk. ![]() Craven’s legal scholarship and musical talent were openly displayed, details of his previous role as chief scientist for the United States Navy’s Special Projects Office would remain hidden for many years. That evening, he entertained by singing operatic arias while accompanying himself on Elisabeth’s grand piano, but these were not his only hidden talents. Craven, a widely respected legal scholar, engineer, scientist, and amateur musician. The director of the Institute at the time was Dr. Elisabeth gathered an eclectic group of friends, including leading scholars, diplomats, lawyers, neighboring fisherfolk and a few fortunate students to share food, drink, and lively discussion. One such gathering took place after a Law of the Sea Institute annual meeting at Dalhousie University in the early 1980s. Her long association with the international law of the sea community developed many long and enduring friendships, often culminating in social gatherings at her home in a small fishing village outside Halifax, Nova Scotia. For her, inclusion of ‘for peaceful purposes’ and ‘exclusively for peaceful purposes’ in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS) were intended as operational, not merely dressing up an otherwise highly practical convention. ![]() Those fortunate enough to know Elisabeth Mann Borgese were well aware of her deep lifelong commitment to peace.
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