Fish Crime Symposium, Dept of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Cape Town, 12-15 October 2015, Day 2 No 15 – Question regarding Transnational Crime on the high seas and Criminal Jurisdiction
Ministry of Justice is extremely important because they are the one that is responsible for how to handle transnational organised crime. There is a lot of emphasis on the high seas and it is without any rules. I believe that is wrong. The problem is how to enforce it. All the vessels that have a flag state are under a criminal jurisdiction. And as criminal jurisdiction also has obligations according to the different legal frameworks that cover criminal activities. So we haven’t explored this possibility. So before we start the process of changing the law of the sea, I will suggest to actually have a hard look at what kind of legislation we have internationally governing international police cooperation.