The Prosecution ‘Gap’ for Attacks on Subsea Cables and Pipelines

Current incidents within the Baltic Sea and elsewhere have uncovered each the vulnerability of undersea infrastructure and the fragility of the authorized order meant to guard it. Whereas current items on EJIL: Discuss! and in Ocean Improvement & Worldwide Regulation handle key aspects, this put up takes a step again to map the broader prosecutorial hole and the systemic jurisdictional uncertainties it reveals.

The explosions that broken the Nord Stream gasoline pipelines between Russia and Germany in 2022, the rupture of the Balticconnector gasoline pipeline between Finland and Estonia in 2023, and the repeated chopping of information cables within the North and Baltic Seas in 2022–2025 display how simply industrial ships might be weaponised to sever the arteries of the trendy financial system. But, within the aftermath of every occasion, the identical query resurfaces: who has the fitting to analyze, arrest, and prosecute? The reply stays removed from clear.

A Authorized Regime Constructed for Ships, Not Cables

The regulation of the ocean was primarily drafted with vessels and sources in thoughts. The 1982 United Nations Conference on the Regulation of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 1884 Conference for the Safety of Submarine Telegraph Cables (Paris Conference) provide restricted guidelines on undersea infrastructure. Whereas coastal States get pleasure from sovereign rights over the exploration and exploitation of sources of their unique financial zone (EEZs) and continental shelf, the overall freedom to put and keep cables and pipelines is preserved for all States (UNCLOS Arts 58(1) and 79(1)). As well as, coastal States have some regulatory competence, significantly the place pipelines hook up with their territory or continental shelf (UNCLOS Artwork 79(4)), however that competence is narrowly outlined.

Article 113 of UNCLOS requires flag States to criminalise the breaking or harm of submarine cables and pipelines outdoors the territorial sea. The identical obligation in relation to telegraph cables seems in earlier type, within the Paris Conference (Artwork II). But enforcement hinges fully on the flag State, which can have little interest in pursuing the matter. As well as, few States have enacted the required implementing laws, leaving a spot between the formal obligation and prosecutorial capability. The imbalance is placing: whereas UNCLOS expressly empowers coastal States to train jurisdiction over synthetic islands, construction, installations, and navigational security zones (Arts 60 and 80), it leaves the safety of cross-border submarine cables and pipelines largely to the flag State of a vessel that broken such essential infrastructure. 

Eagle S and the hole of jurisdiction

The Finnish prosecution of the Eagle S demonstrates this hole vividly. On Christmas Day 2024, the tanker’s anchor dragged for practically 100 kilometres throughout the seabed, severing a number of submarine cables and an influence interconnector linking Finland and Estonia earlier than it was interdicted by the End authorities. The ship brought on severe financial injury significantly in Estonia, but in addition in Finland. But in October 2025, the Helsinki District Courtroom dismissed the costs, ruling that Finland lacked jurisdiction. 

The court docket handled the episode as an “incident of navigation” underneath Article 97 of UNCLOS, which limits penal proceedings to the flag State or the nationality of the accused. As a result of the Eagle S flew the Prepare dinner Islands flag and was crewed by overseas nationals, Finnish courts concluded they might not proceed. 

This reasoning is revealing. The court docket considered the incident by the lens of navigation and the excessive seas freedoms, reasonably than by the lens of Finland’s sovereign rights in its EEZ, its obligation to guard the marine surroundings, and even the likelihood that deliberate assaults on undersea infrastructure might, in sure circumstances, fall inside the definition of piracy underneath Article 101(a)(ii) of UNCLOS. Whether or not Article 97 was ever supposed to cowl anchor injury to subsea infrastructure reasonably than collisions is debatable, however the case illustrates how simply adjudicative jurisdiction slips away when courts default to flag-State primacy. The choice has been appealed (see additional right here).

The Swedish Prosecution Authority has already introduced that it closed its investigation into one other Baltic Sea cable lower attributed to the anchor-dragging by the Maltese-flagged bulker Vezhen. The prosecutor concluded that the cable break was unintentional, brought on by a mixture of extreme climate and technical failure, and that there was no authorized foundation to pursue a negligence offence.

Balticconnector and Rising State Follow

The rupture of the Balticconnector in October 2023 – once more brought on by anchor dragging, this time severing each a gasoline pipeline and communication cables – prompted Finland and Estonia to check the bounds of their jurisdictional powers.

They arrange a joint prison investigation, with Finland emphasising that the incident occurred inside its EEZ, whereas Estonia described the injury as an assault on essential infrastructure. Each positions mirrored a view that coastal State jurisdiction can prolong to acts within the EEZ that threaten important nationwide pursuits.

The States later recognized the Newnew Polar Bear, a Hong Kong-flagged container ship, because the possible supply of the injury after recovering its anchor close to the rupture web site. Requests for cooperation had been despatched to China, however regardless of Estonian and Finnish diplomatic efforts they neither confirmed an investigation nor accepted accountability, exposing the weak spot of the flag State mannequin underneath Article 113 of UNCLOS. But a lot relies on ongoing proceedings. Earlier this yr, the ship’s Chinese language captain was taken into custody and charged earlier than a Hong Kong court docket with prison injury to property with out lawful excuse. If the case leads to conviction, it might display that the flag State mannequin, although fragile, can nonetheless ship accountability. The case has been adjourned to December for additional investigation. The case of the Yi Peng 3, nonetheless, affords little trigger for optimism.

In November 2024, the Yi Peng 3, one other Chinese language-owned cargo vessel, was suspected of damaging two cables connecting Sweden to Lithuania and Finland to Germany. Each had been situated within the Swedish EEZ. China opened an investigation into the ship however declined Sweden’s request for its prosecutor to board the vessel, regardless of earlier assurances of cooperation. In response to Sweden’s overseas minister, Chinese language authorities permitted Swedish police and accident investigators to attend solely as observers inside a Chinese language-led inspection. The vessel subsequently departed the area, and no prosecution adopted.

In response to the 2 incidents, Finland introduced it was contemplating choices to strengthen enforcement measures towards cable cuts past the territorial sea. Poland amended its Safety of Transport and Seaports Act and Estonia amended its EEZ Act and the Defence Forces Organisation Act, explicitly authorising enforcement measures towards acts endangering subsea infrastructure inside the EEZ. Estonia has additional proposed amendments to its Penal Code to increase prison jurisdiction over overseas ships and nationals working in its EEZ, invoking the protecting and results ideas of legislative jurisdiction.

Collectively, these initiatives sign a major evolution in State apply: a attainable willingness to reinterpret, inter alia, UNCLOS Articles 56, 79, and 221 in favour of broader coastal State competence. 

Nord Stream and the Boundaries of Adjudicative Jurisdiction

Poland’s current refusal to extradite a suspect sought by Germany in reference to the Nord Stream explosions once more reveals how fragile adjudicative jurisdiction turns into as soon as an incident happens past the territorial sea. The 2022 blasts destroyed sections of three gasoline pipelines operating from Russia to Germany throughout the Baltic Sea, within the EEZs of Denmark and Sweden. Each Denmark and Sweden launched investigations however finally closed them, citing an absence of jurisdiction over conduct that occurred outdoors their territorial sea and concerned overseas vessels and nationals. Their withdrawal left Germany to pursue the matter alone underneath home regulation.

In late September 2025, Germany issued arrest warrants for no less than six folks, together with a Ukrainian diver, who was apprehended in Poland in late September. A Polish court docket not solely discovered that Germany lacked jurisdiction but in addition characterised the destruction of the pipelines as a reputable wartime act by Ukraine towards the infrastructure of an aggressor State. Decide Dariusz Łubowski described such actions as “diversionary acts” that would not represent crimes “underneath any circumstances”. Professor Kai Ambos referred to as the choice “non-legal” and “politically pushed” noting that civilian pipelines can’t be reclassified as a army goal by political assertion. But this matter isn’t so clear-cut. Though the pipelines seemingly served as civilian objects on the time of the explosions, it may very well be argued underneath a doctrine long-held by the US that the Nord Stream pipelines broadly contributed to Russia’s war-sustaining effort, thereby probably making the pipelines a reputable army goal (see additional right here).

The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, bolstered the political tone by declaring that “[t]he downside with Nord Stream 2 isn’t that it was blown up. The issue is that it was constructed”. Germany’s muted response means that neither facet wished to escalate a politically fraught concern during which the regulation supplied little readability. The episode illustrates how, in such instances, worldwide regulation gives no clear allocation of adjudicative jurisdiction.

The Polish court docket’s determination follows a ruling by the Italian Supreme Courtroom on 15 October 2025, which annulled an earlier judgment authorising the extradition to Germany of one other Nord Stream suspect. Each instances remodeled what’s ordinarily a routine process – the switch of a suspect between EU member states underneath the European Arrest Warrant – right into a extremely political affair.

Stateless Ships and Increasing Enforcement

A associated problem arises when ships concerned in suspicious exercise lack nationality. In 2025, Estonia and France boarded and inspected the Kiwala (later renamed Boracay), a tanker believed to belong to the Russian ‘shadow fleet’. Each States handled the ship as stateless underneath Article 110(1)(d) of UNCLOS, which authorises warships to go to vessels with out nationality on the excessive seas or within the EEZ. Reportedly, since 2025, a major variety of tankers carrying Russian oil have an unclear flag registration. In apply, this provision permits in sure instances States to interdict and examine ships suspected of endangering subsea infrastructure. 

Estonia later tried to interdict one other suspected shadow-fleet tanker, the Jaguar, however the operation failed when a Russian fighter jet intervened. These episodes present that, even the place interdiction is feasible, enforcement stays constrained by political realities and restricted enforcement jurisdiction past the territorial sea.

A vessel’s statelessness itself can, in some authorized programs, give rise to detention or prosecution. As a result of stateless ships get pleasure from no safety from any flag State, they might be visited, boarded, and searched by any State. Nonetheless, statelessness doesn’t itself create common prison jurisdiction over acts dedicated on board; any prosecution should nonetheless relaxation on a recognised jurisdictional foundation underneath home regulation. In apply, most coastal States restrict their response to inspection and expulsion, and few have translated this residual universality into sustained prison proceedings.

Reassessing the Authorized Foundations

Taken collectively, these instances spotlight the problem of making use of present regulation to the realities of hybrid warfare. UNCLOS affords solely a restricted framework for attributing prison jurisdiction over the intentional or reckless injury of subsea cables and pipelines. Articles designed to guard navigation don’t readily handle deliberate interference with essential infrastructure. The result’s a persistent uncertainty during which accountability usually relies on the willingness of the flag State.

One notable response has come from Estonia, which is amending its Penal Code to relaxation on the protecting precept and the results doctrine. Whereas the bounds of the results doctrine stay contested, a number of States make use of to seize conduct with substantial home influence. Laws of this sort, if adopted extra extensively, might assist bridge the jurisdictional hole.

Different recommendations embody clarifying that acts inflicting extreme financial or infrastructural hurt to coastal States fall inside the notion of offences towards “basic pursuits,” thereby allowing use of the protecting precept. Some students go additional, arguing that deliberate assaults on undersea cables might qualify as piracy, thereby granting all States common enforcement powers. This can be a daring however textually defensible interpretation that may no less than keep away from the present paralysis. That stated, it will apply solely to assaults dedicated for “personal ends,” excluding acts immediately attributable to States.

Conclusion

The above instances present how troublesome it stays to deliver the perpetrators of subsea sabotage to justice. Every incident highlights a special fragment of the authorized mosaic: the bounds of adjudicative jurisdiction, the weak spot of enforcement powers, the uncertainty of prescriptive attain, and the challenges posed by flagless ships. The cumulative impact is to go away essential undersea infrastructure largely unprotected by prison regulation past the territorial sea. Except States adapt their home legal guidelines and cooperative mechanisms to replicate the realities of an interconnected seabed and hybrid warfare, the regulation dangers ending in jurisdictional paralysis.