 All right, well, welcome, everyone. It's lovely to see everyone here. I suppose I should say good afternoon and good evening. Delighted you all could join us today. Welcome to today's Stockton Series panel, the ongoing dispute between Ukraine and Russia and the Black Sea, hosted by the Stockton Center for International Law at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Do you see behind me? I am Cynthia Parmaly, the US Navy Military Professor at the Stockton Center, and I will be your host today. Today, we have a fantastic live panel of legal experts here to discuss the strategic and legal dimensions of the maritime dispute in the Black Sea and the Kerch Strait between Russia and Ukraine. We are thrilled to have three scholars from Europe with us today, Professor Anna Petrig of University of Basel as our expert moderator, Professor Alexander Perlis of the University of Hamburg as a panelist, and Professor Wolf Henschel von Heinegg of European University of the Adrena as a panelist. We will have a 90-minute discussion first with our moderator, Professor Petrig, leading our panelists with a series of questions, and then we will open to the audience for questions. And we encourage you all to ask questions throughout the discussion, and you can do so by using the Q&A box. And you can type in a question, and if you see other questions that you like, you can upload them. And Professor Petrig and our team will select questions to ask the panelists. This is a complex topic, so we welcome your participation and your questions, and we hope to have a dynamic discussion. And just to note, the chat is disabled, so please ask questions using the Q&A box. And this panel is live, and we are recording. And a video will be posted afterwards on the Naval War College's YouTube channel, and you can find the channel on YouTube by searching US Naval War College. Now I'd like to invite Professor James Kraska, Chairman, and Charles H. Stockton, Professor of International Maritime Law, to provide some opening remarks. Thank you very kindly, Parm. Just want to take a few seconds to also welcome our distinguished panelists, who have particularly Professor Bong Heinegg and Professor Petrig, who have been dear friends of the Center, and Professor Alexander Proles, and a newer friend of the Center. We thank you very much for your time and for your expertise. We're delighted to be able to host you today. Just a thought or two about the Stockton Center for those who are not familiar with it, the Stockton Center for International Law in the Naval War College is focused on military operations and international law. We have three major lines of effort. The first focuses on international humanitarian law and the law of land operations. The second is focused on the law of airspace, outer space, and cyberspace. And then the third line of effort is focused on international maritime law, the law of the sea and the law of naval warfare. And that's from which this panel has emerged. The Stockton Center also publishes international law studies, the oldest journal of international law in the United States. And in that regard, ILS is ranked number two in the world in national security law behind the Harvard National Security Law Journal, and in the top 10 of international law journals worldwide. And we're very proud of the content that we have for ILS. We have increased our downloads from 2019 to 2020 by some 70%. So we're pleased with that trajectory. With that, I'll turn it back to you, Parm, to take us from here, please. Thank you, sir. I would like to now introduce Professor Anna Petrig, Chair of International Law and Public Law, Faculty of Law at the University of Basel, who will serve as our expert moderator today. Professor Petrig has a PhD in law of the sea and human rights law and an LLM from Harvard Law School. Licensed to practice law in New York and Switzerland, Professor Petrig has served as a judge ad hoc for Switzerland at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea since 2019. And she's offered southern water graphs in the field of law of the sea and international law to include most recently on autonomous ships and the law. Professor Petrig's institution, the University of Basel, Faculty of Law, is a co-sponsor of the annual Stockton Center Cushing International Maritime Law Conference. And we hope they will be able to co-sponsor in 2022, and we can all be in person again. So Professor Petrig, over to you. Thank you very much, Lieutenant Parm, for this overly kind introduction. Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, wherever you may and welcome to our panel on the ongoing dispute between Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea. We greatly appreciate that you find time to join us. Well, it's an honor and the privilege to moderate this panel with our two experts, Professor Heinchel von Heineck and Professor Pruls. We really do have two of the most distinguished and uniquely qualified panelists for a law of the sea slash naval warfare discussion. And I could spend a very long time listing their many achievements and highlighting their various experiences relevant for this panel. However, at the express request of the panelists, I will brief to reserve as much time as possible for substance. Professor Dr. Wolf Heinchel von Heineck holds the chair of public law, in particular public national law, European law and foreign constitutional law at the Europa Universität Jadrida in Frankfurt in Germany. In the academic years, 2003, four and 2012, 13, he was the Charles A Stockton Professor of International Law at the US Naval War College. For all of you who deal with the law of naval warfare, you know that it takes less than 10 minutes of reading until you will encounter his name in one of the footnotes and chances are even higher that the publication you read was authored by Professor Wolf Heinchel von Heineck. Professor Dr. Alexander Proels holds the chair in the International of the Sea and International Environmental Law, Public International Law and Public Law at the University of Hamburg in Germany. And if you deal with law of the sea in your studies, in your practice, in your academic work, you will certainly have encountered his name. He is the editor of the commentary of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea published in 2017, a most useful book to all of us. Well, before we delve into the substance, let me briefly recall the format of our panel. I will first provide you with some background on the dispute between Ukraine and Russia. This will take us a little less than 15 minutes. And then the core of this event is really the discussion with the panelists. I prepare the series of questions for them. However, to make the discussion as interactive as possible, the participants input is really key. I reiterate what Lieutenant Parmy already mentioned. You're kindly invited to submit your questions through the Q&A box and to upload those questions which you like most. We have reserved time towards the end of this panel exclusively for questions from the audience. However, you can submit questions from now on and I might take them up already in our first part of the panel. So let me provide you with some background first on geography and strategic importance of the region. And I will use a map for this purpose as not all of you may be very familiar with the region. Well, the Black Sea region is a strategically important corridor between Asia and Europe in terms of trade, transport, but also energy routes. The Black Sea has been designated as a hinge to Asia and the bridge to the Mediterranean. Various regional powers are seeking to influence the area. However, Russia remains the most powerful state in the region. And it can be hardly overlooked that it harbors the ambition to further expand its influence. It notably seeks to control the Sea of Azov, which you see here, and the Black Sea, as well as the waterway connecting these two seas, the Kerch Strait. Among other things to control these waters means for Russia to obtain freedom of movement for its Black Sea fleet stationed in the Crimea and also for its Caspian fleet, which reaches the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea through the Volga Don Canal. While looking at the geographical position of the Ukraine and notably the Crimean Peninsula, explains why Ukraine is in the focus of Russia's policy of strengthening its end influence in the Black Sea region. Let me point out two major events in relation to Russia's quest to gain influence in the Ukraine. Both happened shortly after the former Ukraine president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted in February 2014. First, Ukraine elects that Russia let support to the separate movement, separatist movements in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, including in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. That's the red part on the map. Second, and even more important for our panel today, Russian-backed forces took control of the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014, and that's the part in black on the map. Only some days later, a referendum was held in Crimea and the majority voted in favor of Crimea joining the Russian Federation. However, the referendum has been declared invalid by a series of states and international organizations. Only days later, President Putin signed a bill to annex Crimea to Russia and since then, Crimea has been under Russian administration. The Ukraine, by contrast, considers that Crimea remains part of its territory under international law and in this way, the UN General Assembly reaffirmed Ukraine's unity and territorial integrity and also the Council of Europe condemned Russia's act as illegal annexation. As a result, Ukraine and Russia are today involved in the broader dispute, which simply put is about territorial control and sovereignty. Well, I will take down the map here. So this broader dispute begs the question whether Ukraine can pursue, next to diplomatic and political pathways, also legal avenues to address this dispute. And while it's a truism that international law lacks an integrated system of international courts to general compulsory jurisdiction, the structure of international judiciary is rather decentralized. So various courts and tribunals exist, each of it only competent to deal with very specific types of disputes. As a result of this, an impressive array of international courts and tribunals today are dealing with very specific claims flowing from this broader dispute between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine notably brought proceedings against Russia before the International Court of Justice. Before the European Court of Human Rights, there are not only interstates applications pending, but over 7,000 individual applications concerning the events in Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, and the Sea of Azov. Several disputes made their way to the World Trade Organization dispute settlement and there are also various investor state arbitrations pending. Moreover, the International Criminal Court concluded its preliminary examination in the situation of Ukraine just last December. Of primary interest here are however the two proceedings that have been brought by Ukraine against Russia under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. First, the dispute concerning coastal state rights in the Black Sea, Sea of Azov, and the Kerch Strait. And second, the dispute concerning the detention of Ukraine naval vessels and servicemen. Let me start with briefly explaining the background of the coastal state rights dispute. In September 2016, Ukraine instituted arbitral proceedings before the permanent court of arbitration against Russia. Essentially, Ukraine claims that Russian activities in the Black Sea, Sea of Azov, and the Kerch Strait violate Ukraine's rights as a coastal state under the outpost. We will discuss about these various allegations in depth during the discussion, but in a nutshell, Ukraine notably alleges that Russia excluded Ukraine from accessing gas fields in its territorial sea and EEZ, the Exclusive Economic Zone. Ukraine argues that the appropriation of gas platforms would have resulted in economic losses and would also bring up security issues as Russia has equipped the platforms with military usable reconnaissance systems and discarding the platforms with Russian forces. Ukraine also alleges that Russia violated Ukraine's rights to living resources in mentioned waters. And last but not least, the dispute is also about the right to passage through the Kerch Strait and that Russia embarked in a campaign of illegal construction in the Kerch Strait that threatens navigation and the marine environment. At the focus is the construction of a bridge connecting the Crimea with Russia, a bridge which opened in 2018 for cars and in 2019 for trains. The construction as such helped with traffic and the bridge prevents large merchant ships from entering the Sea of Azov. In response to the memorial of Ukraine, Russia filed preliminary objections in May, 2008 in contesting that the arbitral tracule is competent to hear the case. Again, in a nutshell, Russia argued that first, in reality the dispute would not be about Anklos, but rather a dispute over who has sorenty over the Crimean Peninsula. That is, who is the coastal state, Ukraine or Russia? This is crucial since maritime entitlements are generated by territory that land dominates the sea paradigm. Since the arbitral tribule constituted under annex seven of the Anklos is only competent to deal with Anklos disputes but not over sorenty dispute, it would not have jurisdiction over the case. Second, Russia argued that the Sea of Azov are internal waters and Anklos would not cover internal waters and other grounds for not being competent to deal with the case. The arbitral tribule decided to hear these objections in the preliminary phase of the proceeding and to suspend the merits proceeding. This is referred to as defecation of the proceedings. The arbitral tribule issued its award on the preliminary objections last February, just a year ago. And the merits proceedings are still pending. And we will certainly discuss many aspects in relation to this case. The second dispute concerns a very specific incident that happened near the entrance of the Kurds' raid on Sunday, 25 November, 2018. Concretely, Russia's Coast Guard patrol boats intercepted and later fired on three Ukrainian naval ships, two warships, and an auxiliary. During the incident, two Ukrainian sailors were injured, the Ukrainian ships were seized, and the crew arrested. As a consequence, in April 2019, Ukraine instituted arbitral proceedings against Russia and submitted also requests for the prescription of provisional measures to the international tribunal for the law of the sea, Aytlos. On 25 May 2019, Aytlos ordered that Russia shall immediately release the Ukrainian naval vessels and the 24 servicemen, which were detained. While the release of the ships and the servicemen were widely welcomed, two aspects gave rise to discussion. And we will both cover, during our panel, first the so-called military activities exemption. According to Article 298 of UNCLOS, state parties to the UNCLOS can declare to exempt disputes relating to military activities from the jurisdiction of UNCLOS tribunals and courts. And Russia made such declaration. The question is thus whether the facts has just explained amount to military activity or not. If so, the respective UNCLOS tribunal would not have jurisdiction, could not decide on the case. We will discuss how Aytlos decided the issue, and we will guess how the arbitral tribunal will address the issue. Second, and even more principled, is the question on the applicable law. What law is applicable to the Curse Strait incident? Is it really the law of the sea, or rather law of naval warfare? And what about use of the Balon considerations? And this brings me to the first set of questions. Well, the Aytlos, in its provisional measures order, held that prima facie of the dispute relates to the interpretation and application of the UNCLOS. That is that the facts are governed by the law of the sea. However, one judge, Judge Lainsaad from the Netherlands, expressed some reservations in her declaration as regards the applicable law. And I would like to quote her, what concerns me is whether the current matter is truly a dispute concerning the interpretation and application of the convention, or whether other rules of international law for which the tribunal may not have jurisdiction are at issue. End of quote. Judge Lainsaad then referred to provisions invoked by Russia in diplomatic addresses, notes addressed to Russia, which notably referred to Article 51 of the UN Charter. Well, given the context of the confrontation between the Russian Coast Guard and the Ukraine Navy near the coast raid in November, 2018, and the references by Ukraine to the right of self-defense, would it be appropriate to examine Russia's aggressive actions rather from a use of the Balon perspective? May I put that first question to Professor Prost? Thank you very much, Anna, for the introduction. Let me first of all use this opportunity to say how grateful I am for the kind invitation to participate in this wonderful event. My sincere thanks goes to everybody at the Stockton Center. Now coming to your question, I believe that the concerns which were raised by Judge Lainsaad in her declaration are actually justified. And I believe that the hit loss was in its order extremely brief and short on the matter of concern. Let us not forget that the incident involved firing of target shots against the Ukrainian vessels. And if we accept the idea that warships and those were the ones used, at least two of them used by Ukraine are actually part of the sovereignty of the state concerned, then I think it is at the minimum possible to argue that the incident did indeed result in a use of force. And if that is the case, then we clearly are at the edge of the use of Balon and also the use in Balon, which was also mentioned in the declaration by Judge Lainsaad as well as of two other judges. So the matter really is difficult. I would say that the use of force converted what I believe used to be either a law enforcement or a military activity, something to discuss later on, into something beyond the law of the sea. That will be my first attempt to concern your question. Thank you very much. Indeed, it was very brief on this issue. Didn't really touch upon it, just applied law of the sea. And Ukraine not only referred to Article 51 of the UN Charter, but also to the Third Geneva Convention relating to prisoners of war, so use in Balon, would it be possible to argue that the incident in the Kyrgyz is actually governed by the law of naval warfare, by the use in Balon? Are there any international armed conflict that triggers the application of the use in Balon? Professor Venshel von Heineck may address that question to you. Well, thank you. But of course, I would also like to thank the organizers for having invited me to this very interesting and exciting panel. Good being back in Newport, albeit virtually only, to make that clear. Well, to your question, well, the tribunal, as you of course know, only in one single sentence in paragraph 44, merely referred to the position of the Russian Federation, according to which it denied the categorization of the situation as an armed conflict. With this, the tribunal made the Russian government a tremendous favor by simply ignoring the overall situation existing between the two states. As the moderator in her introduction has already rightly referred to, we have the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. We have the involvement of regular Russian armed forces in the armed conflict in southeastern Ukraine. So all these incidents already justify the conclusion that there exists an international armed conflict between the two states. And moreover, in accordance with the office of the prosecutor of the ICC, and by the way, the ICRC, the use of force against the foreign warship may itself trigger an international armed conflict between the participating states. So remember that according to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which has today been generally accepted, any resort to a use of force by one state against another brings into existence an international armed conflict. So in short, the Russian Federation is therefore the true winner in the case, because it can now claim by quoting an international court that there is no international armed conflict with the Ukraine. And that is fitting very well into the overall strategy of the Russian Federation by simply denying the existence of such a conflict between the two states. Thank you. Well, you provided us with good arguments that we could be in an international armed conflict triggering the application of the use in Belarus. If we would assess the facts, which I mentioned in the introduction from a law of armed conflict perspective, would the Ukraine vessels like the two warships and the auxiliary, the Ukrainian tugboat, be a legitimate military target? What would be the status of the servicemen? Can you elaborate on this a little bit, Professor Heinrich Lepvinheimich? Well, according to customary international law, enemy warships and enemy auxiliaries are lawful targets, not only legitimate targets, by nature. Because by nature, they make an effective contribution to the enemy's military action, and they are targetable 24-7. The status of the servicemen is clear. They qualify as combatants in a situation of an international armed conflict. That means, yes, on the one hand, they are lawful targets. But in case they fall into the hands of the enemy, they are to be treated as prisoners of war and not as regular criminals, because they enjoy combatant immunity. So the fact that the Russian Federation has charged them with criminal offenses is contrary to the respective rules of the law of armed conflict. And again, the Russian Federation can easily quote the tribunal justifying its conduct as a mere law enforcement operation, even if in violation of the alleged sovereign immunity of the Ukrainian warships. This does, however, not mean, and that is important to stress, that the Russian actions against the Ukrainian warships and their crews were legal. They were certainly not legal via the cruise, because they were treated as criminals and not as prisoners of war. That's one thing. However, according to the law of naval warfare, the exercise of belligerent rights is strictly limited to warships as defined by international law. Not only by treaty, but also by customary international law. This has a long tradition dating back to 1856. And the Russian Federation has, to my knowledge, not issued any notification, according to which the Coast Guard has been integrated into the Russian Navy or otherwise acquired combatant status under the domestic law of the Russian Federation. As would be the case, for example, with the US Coast Guard and its vessels were the United States in an international armed conflict against another state. Hence, the use of Coast Guard vessels for the exercise of belligerent rights, here attack, capture, and apprehension was in violation of the law of naval warfare. Thank you. If we assume for a little longer that we are in an international armed conflict, Professor Prost, would you think the UNCLOS apply in an international armed conflict? Or does UNCLOS only apply in times of peace? Well, the law of this convention doesn't contain anything concerning the legal relations that apply in such a situation of armed conflict. So generally, in such a situation between the parties to the conflict, the law of the sea convention is not going to be the applicable document anymore, but rather these kinds of measures are going to be governed by the law of naval warfare as Professor Sainte Chauhaniq just elaborated. So as I tried to highlight before, I would say, at least from that very moment on, and I'm referring to the incident here, I believe that in between the relations between Russia and Ukraine, the law of the sea convention is not relevant anymore. And I share the view which was expressed by Professor Sainte Chauhaniq that the UNCLOS really was far too short on that matter. Only one paragraph, actually only one sentence, and then referring to the position of the Russian Federation. This is maybe not the objective assessment of the situation would have required. If I may, just one sentence referring to a debate which I've had with Professor Kraska earlier, I believe that knowing and taking into account that usually the existence of an armed conflict is established with regard to the relationship between the countries, I find it striking that neither Russia nor Ukraine or any other state had insisted on the application of the law of naval warfare before the incident that we are discussing right now. So I think it is at least debatable whether the law of the sea was applicable until that point of time. But it certainly, since that point of time, we do have the next specialist regime of the law of naval warfare. Thank you. Well, in defense of the ITELOS, one must say that it only engages in the prima facie analysis of whether the arbitral tribunal to be constituted indeed has jurisdiction. So whether we have an unclothed dispute or not, and sometimes matters are just too complex to deal in a provisional measures case. So it's deferred to the merits. And that leads me to the final questions on this topic. Do you think that the arbitral tribunal which will study and examine this question in depth will decide differently? Or do we have a sort of a precedent with the provisional measures order which makes this rather impossible? I would like just to have your ideas on this, may I start with you, Professor Prost? Cool. I mean, that's a difficult question since we don't know what exactly the tribunal is going to do. But I believe that there is at least a certain likeness that the arbitral tribunal will decide differently. But I find it difficult to come to a clear conclusion here. It is maybe not completely without relevance what kind of approach the NX7 tribunal took in the other Ukraine-Russia case which obviously didn't address the same incident but which had to deal with questions concerning jurisdiction. And my feeling is that that arbitral tribunal took a more conservative approach concerning jurisdiction. So this may in one way or the other have an impact on the decision concerning jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal in the three naval ships case. Thank you. Professor Henshel von Hainek, you want to? Well, I am a little bit worried about the court's understanding of article 290 paragraph five of the law of the sea convention. As in another case, the tribunal believed that Prima-Farzia jurisdiction or the establishment of Prima-Farzia jurisdiction means that it merely requires a cursory and not a final decision on jurisdiction. But I think it's equally arguable to interpret article 290 paragraph five unclosed as meaning that the decision on jurisdiction may be based on a preliminary assessment of the facts which may still have to be fostered by evidence or whatever. But I don't think the court can say, well, we are just doing a sloppy determination of our jurisdiction. And then we even take a decision such as the release of the vessels and the crews by obliging the Russian Federation to do so. I think that is something which is at least arguable. But be that as it may, according to the order, it is of course theoretically still possible that in a decision on the marriage jurisdiction will eventually be denied. And in that context, but we will return to that later, we will of course then have to talk about the exception on military activities, no doubt about that. We will in short turn to the military activities exemption since this is also a question coming from the audience. However, before I would like to take the question of Irini Papandicolopoulou, it relates to the applicability of the unclose. And she asked whether the unclose could apply at least in the measure in which it regulates maritime zones and state powers in them, maybe subordinate to the law, the lexpecialis, which would be the law of Navarro fear. Professor Prost, do you wanna answer that question? Well, I mean, isn't this the exact meaning of the lexpecialis principle that unless there are no specific provisions or more special provisions in place, the general rules still apply. So I wouldn't say that the law of the sea applicable to peacetime relations is not applicable anymore, but as far as the specific incident is concerned and the assessment of the incident concerning the Russian conduct, I believe that there is nothing really, no room left for applying the law of the sea convention. And we have another question coming from Michael Schmidt and he asked whether statements of the party are relevant for the determination, whether there is an international or armed conflict or an armed conflict or whether after the World War II we rather had the achievement of an objective assessment where the views of the party, the subjective component would be less important. Professor Heinrich, you're asking the question to me. Well, until not too long ago, it was Holy Gospel for the ICRC to state that everything depends on the facts on the ground and that any political statements or statements by the parties that may have been induced by political and other aims are irrelevant. If the situation on the ground is such that there has been a resort to a use of force than there is an international armed conflict, however, the ICRC has slightly modified that position in its recent commentaries on common article two of the Geneva Conventions because there they state that an international armed conflict requires what they call an objectivized animus belligarendi. This is outrageous to put it bluntly because that means according to the ICRC that if something happens by mistake, oops, I dropped a bomb, no international armed conflict or which is even worse if there is a clear excess of authority of the actors, meaning the general acting against the will of the political leadership who commences a war by resorting to a use of force that would not trigger an international armed conflict because it is contrary to the will of the political leadership, which is I think even more outrageous than the first statement. And in that regard, we always have to keep in mind that this all plays into the game played by Russia. So I'm not at all surprised why Russia has denied the existence of an international armed conflict because that has been their game since the very beginning of the Ukrainian conflict and they do it in other regions of the world as well. And this very well fits into their overall strategy of hybrid threats by denying a certain legal assessment or a classification of a situation as either illegal or as qualifying as for example, an international armed conflict. Thank you. With this, we will turn to our next topic, the military activities exemption. I also have a question from Kentaro Furuya in this relation. In the EITLAS Provisional Measures Proceedings, one of the key issues was whether we have a military activity or not. And this is important in light of the exemption foreseen in Article 298 of UNCLOS. As mentioned in the introduction, this provision allows state parties to exempt disputes relating to military activities from the jurisdiction of the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism. And Russia indeed made such declaration. However, EITLAS held that Russia's operation against three naval vessels at the servicemen aboard did not constitute a military activity, but rather a law enforcement activity. Professor Pros, do you think in your view, was that the correct ruling? How do you understand this exemption, the scope of it? And how was it understood in other cases? How does this decision sits with other decisions of other courts? With all due respect, I believe that also here, the line of argument presented by the EITLAS is perhaps not that convincing to put it in these words. Let us keep in mind that the tribunal could build upon precedence. And of course, the award of the tribunal in the South China Sea arbitration contained a relevant section referring, and I quote here, two situations involving the military force of one side and the combination of military and power of military forces on the other, a raid and opposition to one another. As the definition of what constitutes military activities, and I think that is just exactly the situation that we were facing with regard to the incident here. Interestingly, my feeling is that also the arbitral tribunal in the other Ukraine-Russia case took a narrow approach, which means that obviously the EITLAS reasoning doesn't seem to reflect at least the dominating approach. Let me make one remark here in addition to what I already said. My real problem with this military activities issue is that the EITLAS referred to what it called the core of the dispute, and that it held was the differing interpretation of the regime of passage through the state of courage. But if we then look at the claims presented by Ukraine that have nothing to do with the passage through the state, but rather with the conduct that was taken against the Ukrainian vessels and seamen. So I believe there's inherent contradiction in the reasoning of the EITLAS here by identifying another dispute, which didn't concern military activities, and then using that as the main reason to argue that this was a law enforcement action. So I don't think that this is the most convincing line of argument which was presented by the tribunal. Well, as you mentioned, Professor Pros, EITLAS has construed the scope of the exemption very narrowly, and Professor Kraska in one of its blog posts even asked did EITLAS just kill the military activities exemption in article 298 of UNCLOS. Well, Professor Hanschel von Heineck, do you think that the decision by EITLAS will generate broader maybe unintended consequences? For example, for states which regularly conduct freedom of navigation operations or intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance missions be it either one of the 27 states which submitted such declaration or states potentially exceeding to the convention, such as the US? Well, before I give you a final answer to your question, we have to remind ourselves how the court proceeded. So they looked at the concept of military activities and then they started deconstructing it. First, they said, well, you know, a law enforcement operation may well be conducted by the use of warships because many states in fact do that. That's correct. And then it claimed, oh, secondly, we must look at the overall situation. So it's the character or the characterization of the activities is but one factor to be taken account of. And so in the end, they arrived at the conclusion that the entire situation regarding the Ukrainian warship was more akin to a law enforcement than to a military activities paradigm. That was very cunning, I must say. However, what the court simply ignored or didn't want to address is the fact that state vessels of the Russian Federation, meaning by a conduct attributable to the Russian Federation engaged in a use of force against foreign warships. And if that doesn't qualify as a military activity, excuse me, I wouldn't understand international law any longer, including the military activities exemption. But apart from that, you are absolutely right. That the decision of the court may well produce consequences for situations in other regions, not only for freedom of navigation, but for many other activities. So for instance, the People's Republic of China could now easily claim that its warship and in particular, their Coast Guard vessels, which they are also making use of, they are merely engaged in some kind of law enforcement operations in the South China Sea. And that will, of course, have far-reaching consequences. And I am afraid that some nations in other regions will follow that example, and that is not necessarily a good contribution to a clarification of the law and for the preservation of the law of the Sea Convention. Thank you. Well, we now spent some time on this one dispute pertaining to a very specific incident. And I would like to turn now to the dispute concerning coastal state rights in the Black Sea Sea of Asov and the Kerch Strait. And while in that respect, it's obvious that one of the key cash question is the status of these borders. Let's start with the Sea of Asov. What do you think, Professor Proz, is the status of the borders of the Sea of Asov? And we also have a question from Artem Matvienko, who also asked what the agreement of 2003 between Russia and Ukraine has a bearing on this question. Thank you. That's a difficult one, again, because the two states don't seem to share at least the same view concerning today's status. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the situation seems to be comparatively clear. The Sea of Asov was addressed in terms of a bay, a single state bay at the time and the Soviet Union had drawn a closing line in accordance, it seems, at least, with what is today codified in Article 10 of the law of the Sea Convention. I'm happy to be corrected here, but I'm not aware of any protests and opposition of that time. Now, what is then the situation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, meaning since 1991? To my knowledge, until today, there is no maritime boundary agreement between the two states in place, the 2003 cooperation agreement to which reference was made in the question, doesn't say anything about delimitation. And against this background, the Russian Federation takes the position that the status of the Sea of Asov has actually not changed, meaning that it is still a bay, even not a single state bay anymore, but a multi-state bay. Now, what would that imply with regard to the legal status? As we can derive from Article 10 with regard to single state bays, waters delimitated by, delineated rather, by a closing line are internal waters, and there are precedents. The Gulf of Fonseca, just to name one example, the Bay of Piran, to name a second one, that may also apply to multi-state bays. That's one option. Should, however, positions of Ukraine have to be understood in such a manner that it takes a different position, which is kind of unclear because the national legislation doesn't seem to be sufficiently specific in this respect. Then it could potentially, the Sea of Asov could then potentially have the status of internal waters, territorial seas, and EEZ, because it's large enough to be able to cover all these maritime zones. And that is certainly something which we will learn, at least potentially, from the arbitral tribunal. Thank you. If I may follow up on the arbitral tribunal, in its award, it said that, I quote, it is not entirely convinced by the rather sweeping premise of the Russian Federation's objection that the convention does not regulate a regime of internal waters. So you just explained that one way of qualifying the waters are internal waters. What is your stance with the way Russia's claim that unclos does not regulate internal waters? Is that maintainable? Well, I personally think that the tribunal is correct here and that the Russian position is perhaps probably not correct. Russia seems to build its position on intra-alia-separate opinion of judges Wolfram and Caud in the Ara Libertad case, where they argued that the internal waters were actually, with the exception of some provisions, not covered by the regime of the law of the sea convention and thus could not be covered by the dispute settlement system of part 15. Well, I find that at least puzzling because there is no doubt that certain provisions do indeed cover the internal waters, those provisions being codified in the law of the sea convention. And since there's no specific provision saying that the dispute settlement system wouldn't be applicable, I have no problem in concluding that with regard to these specific provisions, of course the dispute settlement regime is applicable. So I wouldn't go as far as judges Wolfram and Caud and Russia. And I believe that this is something to delve deeper and to argue in more detail by the arbitral tribunal, which I think then is correct in its position. Thank you. Well, if we turn now to the courage straight, also different views have been expressed on its status and nature and also then relating to the navigation regime. What legal basis could Ukraine invoke for passage rights or against restrictions to navigation imposed by the Russian Federation? Artem Matvienko was referring his question to Russia requiring notification, asking permission, requiring the use of pilots, et cetera. Professor Hanschel von Heineck, may I put that question to you? Well, I'm here even more in favor of considering the Sea of Azov, rather an EEZ plus territorial sea and not internal waters. And I don't buy that it is a multinational bay. With the emergence of the Ukraine as an independent state, this has all changed. And even the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula didn't change anything about that. So if we start from that premise, the Strait of Kerch is an international straight. None of the exceptions under Anglos would apply to it. So therefore there would be a right of transit passage. By the way, not only of Ukraine or of Ukrainian vessels but for all vessels of all states, which is very important to keep in mind. And don't forget the economic importance of the Ukrainian ports that are located near the Sea of Azov, which is of course equally important. So any impediment on the right of transit passage would be in violation of Anglos. Thank you. And can you elaborate a little bit on what means a coastal state has to control an international straight in times of peace and in times of armed conflict and how that relates to requirements set by Russia in relation to the Kerch Strait? Well, in times of peace, the coastal states or the coastal states rather bordering an international straight because we have still two states bordering that straight unless you consider the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula to be valid, which I don't. Then they are of course well entitled to exercise control. I mean, after all, the legal status of an international straight still is territorial sea, meaning it's part of the territory, of course, subject to the right of transit passage. So they are of course entitled to control or to exercise control over the movement of ships in the straight or even air traffic above the state, the straight, but this may never result in an impediment of the right of transit passage in times of peace. In times of an international armed conflict, it's a little bit different. If we look at only the Ukraine and the Russian Federation, then the law of naval warfare would of course allow them to take all measures against the respective enemies, vessels and aircraft. And then the right of transit passage would have no bearing at all. However, that's important. For third states, this would still have a meaning because third states may want to continue to use the straight of courage and the right of transit passage continues to be valid even in times of an international armed conflict. That it is at least my position, but it is also shared by the Sanremo manual on the law of naval warfare. Professor Prost, do you want to follow up on the navigational regime and the restrictions imposed by Russia? Maybe not on this last point. I have really nothing to add. I believe there is a point for discussion concerning the status. So as Professor Eintre von Anich said, yes, that's one of the options, EEZ. And then indeed it'll be easier to argue that the straight of courage is subject to the transit passage regime. There's a factual problem. I believe with regard to the question, is it then a straight used for international navigation? I know that there's quite a lot of sea traffic through that straight and used to be, but it seems that most of it was either Russian or Ukrainian vessel. So then the question arises, is that international navigation? And that's debatable, I would say. But I have to say that this obviously really has to do with the amount of ships and the amount of flags passing through the straight and I'm not perfectly familiar with the numbers here. What I just would like to add is that concerning this very strange conception of a multi-state bay establishing internal waters, we do have with the Gulf of Piran, this Slovenia Croatia arbitration, we do have a precedent. So I wouldn't completely exclude it, but that obviously is really a matter of interpreting the conduct of the two states since 1991. And I have to confess that I haven't delved into this in every detail. So I wouldn't be in the position to come up with a definite answer. Thank you. Well, as mentioned in the introduction, Ukraine and Russia are involved in a broader dispute which is about territorial sovereignty. And then we have very specific claims regarding coastal state rights and the name under which the PCA, the permanent court of application, which is the case is indeed dispute concerning coastal state rights in the Black CC of Asset and Cursed Rate. And I wonder whether Professor Bros, you could elaborate what kind of coastal states rights Russia, Ukraine claims. I already briefly referred to it in the introduction and how these rights could be affected by the conduct of Russia assuming that Ukraine is the coastal state. We will cover that later on. Yes. Well, the rights that Ukraine is claiming as coastal state arise from a variety of provisions, some of them referring to the territorial sea, others referring to the EEZ and the continental shelf, which means many of these rights are connected and related to resource management platforms in the area concerned fisheries, then a leech harassment of Ukrainian vessels plus some issues concerning cooperation in the context of the building of the bridge over the strait of Kerch. So, you know, this extends, this ranges from articles 256, 77 to the articles concerning the strait, taking into account that as Professor Einig mentioned, the fact that the strait is potentially one used for international navigation doesn't change the fact that it is, you know, obviously part of the territorial seas of the riparian state. So, also that is covered by potential coastal state rights. And Russia's most important objection to jurisdiction of the arbitral tribune is as mentioned that actually the dispute is about territorial sovereignty. Who is the coastal state since maritime entitlements are generated by territory. It's obviously very important to know who is the coastal state. Professor Pros and then also Professor Hanschel von Heineck, can you elaborate on how the arbitral tribunal approached this objection? And do you agree with the approach paper? Because this is really key for also future disputes. Professor Pros, do you want to take first? You remind me of starting, I don't want to take too much time here. I'm trying to be brief, although this I believe is really not only an important legal question, but also it's quite a fascinating and complex one. Now, I think we have to see that in the meantime, we have about five cases which have dealt with this problem of what is sometimes referred to as implicated sovereignty or incidental or even ancillary jurisdiction. So the Ukraine-Russia case is just one. And indeed, the tribunal took a comparatively reluctant approach by saying that the majority of claims presented by the Ukraine indeed would put it in the situation to adjudicate on a sovereignty issue, which is of course the status of Crimea. And not because of this case or because I'm sympathetic to one or the other states, I personally think that this more careful approach is correct. There are other decisions around, in particular the one rendered by the arbitral tribunal in the South China Sea on the one hand, but also the one recently rendered in the Enrica-Lexi case, which didn't deal with sovereignty, but with immunity, which means something beyond the regime of the Lovis Convention, which did take a different approach. What can be said, I believe, is that the tribunal and the Ukraine-Russia case very clearly based its conception on the Chagas case, and then referring to the need to conduct a balancing exercise by identifying where, quote, the relative weight of the dispute lies, end quote, that is the wording used by the Chagas tribunal. And I think that in the case at hand, it was comparatively difficult for Ukraine to argue that essentially the coastal state question is not directly related to sovereignty. Ultimately, large portions of the Ukrainian conduct really affect the issue of sovereignty over Crimea. And from that perspective, I believe that the tribunal took the correct approach. Thank you. Since it's really key, Professor Hanschelf and Heineck, do you want to take that question as well? No, nothing needs to be repeated twice. So I'm absolutely with Professor Perlz here. Thank you. To follow up, you already referred to other judgments where there were also underlying sovereignty issues, disputes, and just very recently on 27th of January, the Eidl Special Chamber rendered a decision preliminary objections judgment in the case of Mauritius versus Maldives, which also involves an underlying sovereignty dispute. Can you explain what the approach taken was and how it sits with other and also with the decision of the arbitrary tribunal just to compare these two cases? Professor Perlz? Happy to do so. Well, the Special Chamber took a different approach, but the background, of course, was a different one. And this background was in particular the ICJ advisory opinion on which the Special Chamber put the main emphasis together with the resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly concerning the status of the Chegos archipelago. And in light of these developments, the Special Chamber concluded that actually the territorial status was meanwhile settled, whilst that was not the case in when the Chegos unaccepted tribunal decided its case. I think this is really something to think further about, taking into account the limited, let me put it in these words, legal relevance of advisory opinions. At the same time, no doubt that the Special Chamber managed to kind of create some coherent approach with regard to different courts involved in the matter. But without having thought through this in all detail, I have to say that when reading the judgment, I was surprised about the very strict, the very strong case made by the Special Chamber. And I believe that I'm not one of the sent convinced that this can be the last word. Let me put it again in these careful words. Professor Heinzschild von Heineck, you're nodding, do you agree or? So if we, against this background and against the background that the enclose refers more than 60 times to coastal state, does this mean that in cases where it's unclear who is the coastal state? Is it then unlikely to ever have a decision on the merit through the enclose dispute settlement? And if so, are there alternative avenues? What about the ICJ? Would that be an avenue for Ukraine? Professor Heinzschild von Heineck, may I have your opinion on this? Yet another international court decision. I don't think that is the right way of solving the issue because it's not only the disrespect of the Russian Federation vis-à-vis international courts, but also the overall conduct the Russian Federation is showing. And let's assume we had a decision according to which the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula is null and void, that it is continues to be an integral part of Ukrainian territory. Well, I would be with that decision, of course, but will it have an impact? On the Russian conduct? No, not at all, not at all. So we must be very aware that the entire dispute settlement system will not be bring about any noticeable changes as long as Russia continues to pursue that course of action. And I don't have a crystal ball, but if you look at the practice of the past years, I don't see that there is any chance of Russia changing its course of action if nothing happens, including by other states, including by European states, because the Russian Federation has got away with everything it did during the last couple of years, including the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, including the involvement in southeastern Ukraine, and nothing happened. Yes, there were some sanctions. Yes, there were some diplomats who were declared persone neongrate, but who cares about this in Moscow? No one really, because they continue to make money, including by selling gas to the Federal Republic of Germany. Well, this is a rather pessimistic view on the impact of international courts and tribunals. Well, I promise that towards the end of the panel, we would take questions from the audience. We already answered some, but I have many more interesting ones. One stems from John Norton Moore, and he asked that we discussed about the use of Bellum considerations that we could also look at this case from a use of Bellum perspective. And he asked whether Eidloss would have any possibility to address use of Bellum issues, given that article 293, which refers to the applicable law, also refers next to the convention to other rules of international law, not incompatible with this convention. That's the wording. Professor Pros, what is your take on this? Well, that's a good question. Thanks, Professor Moore, for that one. There is some limited case law, which seems to offer that kind of approach. I'm very skeptical about it, because article 293 presupposes that jurisdiction has been established, which means that the provision on applicable law cannot and should not be used in order to circumvent the limited jurisdiction of unclosed courts and tribunals. In other words, it is not possible, in my opinion, for an unclosed tribunal or court to come up with a decision on the merits concerning use of force or naval warfare or whatever there is, but the only thing that article 293 makes possible in my view is to refer to other sources of international when interpreting the terms of the convention. And that's something else, because then you give a decision on the merits concerning the interpretation and application of the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea, but you don't come up with a decision on the merits on other international sources. So I think that the two or three cases that are available, and I believe that MV Saiga, too, is one of the examples, if I'm not mistaken, where the tribunal made a statement concerning use of force. I think that, again, with all due respect, that that decision is wrong in that perspective. We have another interesting question coming from Alexi Nesterov, who is a captain of the Ukrainian Navy and he has a question with regard to SAR activity, search and rescue. And he says that Ukraine cannot render SAR, cannot carry out SAR activities. It's prevented from Russia. That's one part of the question, whether you could comment upon SAR responsibilities and the possibility to offer SAR activities. And the other question relates to the gas platforms near the Crimean Peninsula. I mentioned that Russia appropriated these platforms, whether you could elaborate on this as well and maybe also connected with the latter part of the question is, can occupation extend to the sea or does it only cover land territory? That's a complex one, but maybe you can just briefly provide a view on this. Professor Hanschel van Heineck, can you answer first? I know there are some fancy ideas about the occupation law applying at sea. I think this is the wrong approach. Of course, if there isn't, let's put it that way, if there were an occupying power, a true occupying power in accordance with the Hague regulations of 1907, then of course it would extend its jurisdiction. Remember, it's military authority over foreign territory, which would then of course also extend to the territorial sea. But we shouldn't forget that the, if it were occupation law to apply to the situation, and this seems to be a widely held view, this would only mean that the occupying power would act as a usual factory of the occupied territory, but any other form of appropriation of property, et cetera, would clearly be illegal and would be in violation of occupation law. So therefore, my assessment of this is the Russian conduct is not justifiable under the existing rules of international law and preventing certain rescue activities by the Ukraine is also in violation of international law because those obligations continue to apply. And if, and to the extent the Ukraine is responsible for maritime surgeon rescue in the respective sea area, preventing it from exercising surgeon rescue activities for the sake of those who are in distress at sea is again a clear violation of the applicable treaty and customary rules. Professor Pruls, you want to answer with regard to SAR activities? No, I think I share the same position. I mean, the situation is even worse if we assume for a moment that the Russian Federation then doesn't conduct the surgeon rescue operations itself. So, you cannot just prevent states from fulfilling their obligations under the law and then just lean back and do nothing. So I think that this is an inevitable conclusion. There is one more question relating to the use of force. Peter Bowers writes that Professor von Heineck referred to the use of force by one state against another means that an international armed conflict exists. And whether it's your view that the use of force against the Ukraine ships rose to the level of an armed attack, which would then trigger the right to self-defense? Well, not every use of force necessarily qualifies as an armed attack. I know the US position is different in that respect. According to the US view, any use of force triggers the right of self-defense because there is made no distinction between a use of force and an armed attack. For other governments, this would be difficult to maintain because they would of course follow the approach by the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case, according to which it must be the gravest form of the use of force, which is then to be determined by reference to scale and effects. However, I think an attack against a foreign warship will always qualify as an armed attack. And irrespective of the discussion on whether there is a gap between article 24 and article 51 of the charter, there can be no doubt about that. And if you look at state practice, any attack on a warship has always been considered as triggering the flag states' right of self-defense. Of course, in some situations, the flag states didn't respond in exercising their right of self-defense. Think of the Shonan case where North Korean submarine sank South Korean patrol boat. Well, for political and other reasons, South Korea refrained from exercising its right of self-defense, but it would have been entitled to do so because it would have qualified as an armed attack. So in light of that, we should not be overly cautious in considering an attack against a warship and armed attack. And just to think of the incidents in the Persian Gulf where twice British and US servicemen were attacked by Iranian revolutionary guards, which I think the respective states considered to be an armed attack against their respective armed forces triggering the right of self-defense, even though in fact, the situation did not escalate, but that has nothing to say about whether there existed a right of self-defense and the same holds true here. Thank you. The question about the applicable law really raises a big interest that we have another question on that from Andrew Norris. He asked whether it would be possible that the applicable legal regime springs based on the circumstances that the law of the sea applies in day-to-day interactions and the law of naval warfare when those day-to-day activities evolve into conflict. He writes as with many situations, technically characterizable as a situation of armed conflict in reality, most of the time, at least at sea, there is not an actual conflict between the parties, but rather a situation of tension without any military confrontation. Should the technical status and resultant legal regime apply at all times irrespective of the actual day-to-day activities involving the two parties? Professor Proz, you wanna answer this question? That is a really difficult... I believe that's... I don't have a definite answer to be very clear. I think this was the first statement I made in this discussion when I said that there may, and I'm trying to be very careful knowing, of course, the general approach concerning the applicability of international humanitarian law whenever there's an armed conflict and this would extend essentially to the entire territory of the state. But my suggestion at least came somewhat close to what Andrew Norris said when I said that it seemed that notwithstanding the existence of an armed conflict concerning Crimea, which for me is beyond doubt. And the same is true with regard to Eastern Ukraine. It seems that the situation was somewhat addressed differently by the two states, but also by other states concerning the situation in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. And that seems to imply that there is some kind of flexibility. How far this argument could be driven is difficult. And I'm perfectly aware of the risks involved in such a development. And they were very strongly pointed out by Professor Andrew Bonanyi before the risk that states then essentially have to their own hands to declare or to create the results of whether or not international humanitarian law is applicable or not. And that must, of course, not be. At the same time, I personally think that if you have such a sufficiently state practice, then I believe that it probably cannot remain completely out of the analysis. And that's my point. But that isn't, I mean, I admittedly not a really appropriate answer to the question posed, but I don't have a better one. Maybe you do. I don't know. Professor Hanscheff Bonanyi, do you have to offer something? No, this is really a tough question. Because I struggled when I was asked to distinguish between incidents at sea on the one hand and a use of force triggering an international armed conflict on the other hand. My suspicion is that the ICRC commentary on Common Article 2 is a little bit triggered by the concern that with an incident at sea or in the air, an international armed conflict may come into existence. So that's why I think they took that approach of an objectivized animus belligerendi. But I just need to re-emphasize what Professor Perch has already said. We shouldn't fall into that trap. A little flexibility here, a little bit flexibility there. At the end of the day would mean, well, yes, there can be two characterizations of one and the same situation, which at the end of the day, however, will have a negative impact on the people affected. And in our situation, just think of the crews of the Ukrainian warships who were treated as blunt criminals and no combatant privileges granted to them by the Russian Federation. And that is what the consequence will be. Simply denying it, just saying, oh, you know, it is more akin to a law enforcement operation. Therefore, we are not bound, for example, by the Third Geneva Convention. No, I won't accept that approach, even though I understand, of course, that it's sometimes difficult to make that distinction between an incident and the existence of an international armed conflict, which is really difficult because it happens on an everyday basis. But we have to live with these difficulties. Thank you. So we had a tough question and now we will have a final question, which is more general. If I can ask both panelists how do Russia's attempts to change the rule-based maritime legal order through aggression and coercion affect the continued viability of UNCLOS and the understanding of coastal state rights in UNCLOS? Professor Prowles, may I ask you first? You really believe that this is an easy one? I disagree. That's the grand question, isn't it? Well, I mean, my general feeling, well, I share this kind of skepticism towards the chances of success of even more cases before international courts. We seem to have reached a state where there isn't really that much help that can be taken from these kinds of proceedings. At the same time, I think that altogether, the law of the sea has, no matter whether we agree with all decisions rendered by international courts or tribunals, remain quite resilient in its overarching structure and in its approach and the functionality of the dispute settlement system. And that I would generally think is a very good sign. That said, there seem to be indications and I'm thinking of large powers that have obviously don't comply with the law of the sea as staying away from legal proceedings. And that is true with regard to Russia. That is also true with regard to the People's Republic of China. So this is altogether a very delicate balance and courts and tribunals will be called upon to keep that in mind because if they agiticate in a two-dimantic way, this will result in a complete loss of importance of the dispute settlement system, which would probably be the worst case. At the same time, it is of course not an option to let those who violate the law of the sea to get away with it. But maybe this is just exactly why courts and tribunals are not the best option, but rather why political pressure has really to be increased on those who do not stick to the rules and principles. So let's not put all the hope in courts. You see, they decide single cases and they maneuver in a very complex political environment. So I'm always puzzled by this idea, let's call upon the court and there's going to be the solution. No, no, that's not true. So I think that we need both, but we shouldn't go too far with regard to activist approach concerning international courts and tribunals. That will be my position. Thank you, Professor Hansel von Heineck, the final word on the continued viability of enclose in light of Russia's conduct. Well, with regard to Russia, I already said it before. The entire incident there is but a pattern of an overall Russian attempt to relieve itself from international obligation if it suits their interest. And they will continue to do so. But that's important. The law of the sea is far too precious than throwing it away only because some bigger powers such as the PRC or the Russian Federation do not necessarily care all too much about it. I think we simply must be very clear that leaving it to international arbitration or to international courts is not enough. We must also do something in a concerted effort to, well, if necessary, even enforce the law of the sea when we see that it is under pressure by the conduct of such states. I know this is easy to say because it is, of course, always linked to a possible escalation of the situation. But maybe when we look at the Black Sea, maybe yet another bumping incident not involving only the US Navy, but maybe a couple of nations represented in such an exercise of freedom of navigation would be something which would impress the Russian Federation much more than leaving it to pure Ukraine or even the other states bordering the Black Sea to do something with regard to the preservation of the law of the sea and coastal states rights. So inter alia, it would also be the European Union. After all, the European Union has a maritime security strategy and they claim that they are so vitally interested in preserving the law of the sea. So if I haven't said then do something and why wouldn't the Black Sea, wouldn't it be the best opportunity of putting some action to the nice words they have put down in the strategy? Thank you for your final words. Time flew by and it's already five to one. This means we have already reached the end of this panel. Before I hand over to Lieutenant Parmy, I would like to express my warmest thanks to the panelists for their time and to share insights on this topic with us. It is much appreciated. Thanks also go to the audience for attending the event and also for enriching our discussions to their thoughtful questions, tricky questions. And last but not least, I would like to extend my personal thanks to the Stockton Center of the US Naval War College for bringing together experts to discuss the complexities of the ongoing dispute between Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea region. A topic that raises exciting and fundamental questions in the context of a rule-based maritime legal order as we have seen. And with this, I would like to hand over to you, Lieutenant Parmy, thank you. Thank you, Professor Petschig. Thank you all for participating today. This has really been a wonderful discussion and I have taken so many notes and I have much to read and ponder over. The questions and the quality of them are quite extraordinary as well. So thank you for the audience for your participation. I'd like to remind everyone that this event will be on the Naval War College's YouTube channel and you can search for it on the US Naval War College channel. We hope you join us again for future Stockton Center panels. We plan to have another soon on Arctic law and policy. A big thanks to our moderator and panelists, Professor Petschig. Thank you so much for leading us today. It was quite wonderful. And you had a very complex role in this virtual world so I appreciate it. Professor Perlz, Professor Hanschel von Heineck, thank you both for your remarks. Really great discussion. We at the Stockton Center sincerely appreciate your time and expertise in helping us advance scholarly discourse on these critical issues in law of the sea and maritime international law. And finally to our audience, thank you so much for joining us in this virtual discussion. I hope soon we can start having these in person. I hope you enjoyed it. And that concludes today's panel. I hope everyone stays healthy and safe and wish you all a good afternoon and good evening. And thanks very much.