Alexander Lott

As many NATO states compete in the geopolitical “AI race,” their ambitions increasingly depend on energy- and data-intensive infrastructures. Central to this are subsea cables (SSCs), which have been denoted the “arteries of AI”. SSCs facilitate the national and transnational transfer of data and electricity necessary for current and future AI development. Despite their criticality, SSCs are highly vulnerable to sabotage and hybrid warfare, carrying profound social, political, economic, and security implications. This paper presents findings from an interdisciplinary expert workshop held in Stockholm in January 2026. The workshop focused on the protection of SSCs within NATO states, specifically the UK and the Nordic-Baltic region, amidst the ongoing geopolitical disorder and decline in multilateralism. We identify a “policy gap” and an “action gap” in protecting SSCs. Regarding the policy gap, the paper sets out three governance mechanisms that could be leveraged to better protect SSCs, including the reinterpretation of piracy under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the expansion of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) enforcement, and the adoption of an armed conflict paradigm. Further, we discuss the action gap - while the legal mechanisms to protect these cables exist, many remain hesitant to act upon these. This action gap is explored through a preliminary typology of challenges (legal, geopolitical, global political economy, and technical) that hinder effective policy integration to secure these arteries of AI.

Damage caused to underwater infrastructure has increased in frequency over the past few years. Incidents in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea have shown that anchor-dragging ships can easily cause disruption to internet or electrical networks, along with examples of other methods of deliberate harm, such as the use of explosives. The main legal challenges to the protection of critical offshore infrastructure lie outside the limits of the territorial sea. Relevant treaty law grants stronger legal protections to wrecks, unmanned platforms and floating buoys than to cross-border submarine telecommunications and power cables or gas and oil pipelines. Whilst the legal framework is fragmented and contains significant gaps, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea permits coastal States to enforce their laws for the protection of submarine cables and pipelines outside the territorial sea. Based on the effects doctrine and the protective principle, coastal States can extend their criminal jurisdiction over deliberate damage to submarine cables and pipelines connected to their territory. Furthermore, recent incidents in Europe show that suspected stateless ships can be interdicted by the coastal State.

The Strait of Hormuz has great significance for the world economy as an oil chokepoint. Yet in recent years, international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz has been repeatedly hampered and subject to discriminatory navigational restrictions and attacks. Such measures have been mostly aimed at oil tankers. This article examines the maritime incidents that occurred in the Strait of Hormuz in 2019: mine attacks against oil tankers and the arrest of an oil tanker by the Iranian armed forces. This study approaches these incidents from the perspectives of the law of the sea and from jus ad bellum.

It is widely believed that international law does not enable to protect effectively the wreck of the ms Estonia against looting. The protection regime established under the 1995 ms Estonia Treaty is binding and violations against it can be effectively sanctioned in respect of only the nationals of its few States Parties, resulting in numerous jurisdictional gaps. This study argues that the law of the sea and administrative law provide the means for safeguarding the ms Estonia wreck against pilferers. Estonia has repeatedly designated tiny buffer zones around relatively modern shipwrecks outside its territorial sea. Finland can follow this practice in relation to the ms Estonia wreck that lies less than 19 nm from its baselines. In effect, Finland would be entitled to regulate and authorize activities directed at the shipwreck with the right to exercise its enforcement jurisdiction against persons that disturb the peace of the mass grave.

The Gulf of Finland has one of the busiest shipping routes globally and is the main export channel for Russian oil and gas. The Russian Federation has not closed its territorial sea for the east-west passage of ships to and from its ports. However, it has blocked over the past dozen years the north-south passage of an Estonian-Finnish commercial ferry line that has not received the Russian Federation’s permission for crossing its territorial sea. The Russian Federation’s permit-based passage regime caused the closure of that ferry line in 2007 and reportedly still hinders its re-establishment. In this context, the Russian Federation’s practice on the right of innocent passage through its territorial sea in the Gulf of Finland resembles the Soviet Union’s practice prior to the 1989 Jackson Hole statement.

This study explores the passage regimes of the Kerch Strait and its adjacent maritime areas in the context of current arbitration proceedings between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. It ascertains that conflicting sovereignty claims over Crimea might lead to strait states and user states alike retaining their different approaches to the passage regime of the Kerch Strait. Thus, the regimes of transit passage and authorization-based passage might simultaneously be applied to the Kerch Strait under the domestic laws of the strait states, law of the sea, and general international law, particularly the obligation of nonrecognition. The law of the sea allows the reconciliation of such conflicting approaches and ensures legal certainty in the shipping lanes of the Kerch Strait if the coastal states agree on and respect a sui generis passage regime.

Les détroits de la partie septentrionale de la mer Baltique, le golfe de Botnie, le golfe de Finlande et le golfe de Riga, sont importants pour entre autres la sécurité de Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Saint Pétersbourg et Riga. Ces dernières années, en raison tout particulièrement de l’occupation et de l’annexion de la Crimée en 2014, les États riverains de la mer Baltique ont adopté des mesures pour dissuader et réagir à la menace de la guerre hybride. Une attention toute particulière a été portée sur la partie septentrionale de la mer Baltique en raison des nombreux incidents dont ont été victimes les États riverains avec les avions et navires russes, comme dans le golfe de Finlande ou la politique de démilitarisation (Gotland et Åland) qui ont laissé des zones stratégiques importantes vulnérables à l’utilisation de la force. Cet article s’attache à analyser les mesures prises par les États riverains de la partie septentrionale de la mer Baltique afin de s’adapter à l’environnement de sécurité changeant et examine minutieusement le cadre légal qui a trait aux développements de sécurité récents dans les détroits, golfs et ports de la région.

EU legislation on administrative penalties has prompted an intense discussion in Estonia on whether to resurrect a measure from the past, namely administrative penalties. These penalties were abolished in Estonia in 2002, with all minor offences since then being classified as misdemeanours. Proponents of the administrative penalty procedure raise two main arguments: first, that the EU requires transposition of administrative penalties laid down in EU legislation specifically under a domestic administrative procedure; and second, that an administrative procedure would be a speedier and effective way to detect and punish offenders. In 2019, the authors of this article carried out a research project for the Estonian Ministry of Justice to map out the options for transposing EU administrative sanctions into Estonian law and to assess their compatibility, feasibility, and consequences. This paper summarizes the main results of that project.

In 2014, Estonia and the Russian Federation signed their land and maritime boundary agreements that are currently awaiting ratification. This study reconstructs the maritime boundary delimitation between the two States. In particular, the role of islands and pre-existing agreements for the delimitation of the territorial sea boundary in the south-eastern part of the Gulf of Finland are critically examined. It is established that the agreed maritime boundary line is a median line which was influenced by the use of the special circumstances method in the delimitation process.