PIL Hub Seminar: A Feminist Lens on Maritime Security

The PIL hub lunch-time seminar series aims to provide an opportunity to discuss and debate leading research on contemporary, theoretical and historical issues of international law.

Our next PIL Hub seminar will be held on Thursday 1st February from 12-13.00 in the Moot Court Room

We will have the opportunity to hear from Gina Heathcote, Professor of Public International Law at Newcastle University, casting a Feminist Lens on Maritime Security

We hope you can join us!

A Feminist Lens on Maritime Security

There is rarely an armed conflict or security issue within international law that does not include a maritime component. Nevertheless, most studies of international security, peace, or armed conflict provide only limited attention to maritime security. Instead, maritime security is often approached through specific issues, such as piracy or maritime boundary conflicts. In this  research I address the topic of maritime security which I regard as intrinsically connected to collective security and the legal regulation of armed conflict (or the use of force) and as an international issue that includes environmental and human security. The broader focus and understanding of maritime security that I develop prompts important reflection on the relationship between militarism, capital and humanism that is important to a gender analysis of (maritime) security. I argue that a queer feminist analysis of maritime security benefits from a posthuman account of subjectivity that understands human security as intimately connected to nonhuman security, or a posthuman maritime security agenda, with the ocean as legal subject addresses persistent failings of the international security structure.