ABSTRACT
The Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) have been stopping and boarding vessels in the Arabian Gulf intermittently since 1990 to enforce United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions.1 Such operations are a type of naval constabulary operation. Naval constabulary operations are coercive operations for a national or international law enforcement purpose and are a significant part of each navy’s contribution to New Zealand and Australian maritime security.2 They are quite distinct from the conduct of naval warfare. In the international law of the sea, the right of a state to enforce UN Security Council resolutions, or national laws, balances against the rights afforded to states by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC)3 to have their vessels exercise innocent passage4 in territorial seas and freedom of
* A substantial part of the research and writing of this chapter occurred while the author was a Visiting Fellow with the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge. The author would like to thank the staff and Fellows of the Centre for their support generally and comments on the chapter, particularly those of the Deputy Director, Dr Roger O’Keefe. The author is also grateful for the comments of Lieutenant Colonel Steve Taylor, NZDF Legal Service, and of the members and attendees of the Trans-Tasman Maritime Security Workshop, particularly those of Joanna Mossop.
