Introduction
"During November 18-19, the Government of India, through the impeccable organization and invitation of the Observatory Research Foundation - ORF and the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, the sponsorship of five other entities (two foreign governments, Norway and the Kingdom of Netherlands, and three private enterprises/institutions), held in New Delhi the huge conference Sagarmanthan – The Great Oceans Dialogue.
The event comprised several panels, discussions, statements, presentations and a Studio Agenda, covering if not all, certainly the main facets and issues related to the Oceans. It gathered experts, authorities and professionals from manifold countries and, besides the speakers and delegates, included a sizeable group of Minister´s Youth Delegates, comprising students and young Navy officers. Everything was made possible thanks to a large team of hosts and assistants, under the swift and clever direction of Samir Saran, ORF President and Curator of the event.
Beneath the interesting and inspiring discussions lies India’s newest objective: to become a global maritime merchant power. This includes development of new ports, ancillary facilities and systems, together with a greater emphasis on ship building and repairing, with the goal of being among the top 10 manufacturers in the next 10 years, and the top 5 in about 15 years.
As regards ports, the flagship venture is Vadhvan, a greenfield, deep-sea port under construction in the coast of the state of Maharashtra, not very far from Mumbai. A joint venture between Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (74 percent) and the Maharashtra Maritime Board (26 percent), it is scheduled to be finished by 2034 and supposed to then figure among the top 10 in the world. It is worth noting that Jawaharlal (aka Nhava Sheva) and Mundra -somewhat up, Northwards- ports account together for over 12 million TEU in annual container’s traffic.
The new ventures are mid to long term investments whose importance seems in principle undeniable, given the continuous increase of Indian trade relations and the ever-growing geopolitical importance of the country, while only a small fraction of its present trade and containers shipments is handled by Indian ships.
Moreover, the Indian Ocean, besides being a key passage area for the functioning of the world economy, is host to more than half of the world reserves in hydrocarbons and uranium, nearly half and three fourths, respectively, of those of gold and diamond; most of these in the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of its coastal countries.
However, in nowadays’ fast-changing world, in permanent state of flux, uncertainties are varied.
Since Flôres (2013), I pledge to look at the Ocean as a single entity, like in the Spillhaus projection. This unbounded space, apparently still and completely unhindered, is actually home to several invisible though constraining structures. Different market forces, most under powerful oligopolies, operate in distinct though intersecting layers, and the military dimension becomes, unfortunately, ever more present.
With its potential and already-being-explored natural resources, promising materials and nutrients in the seabed, and its enormous relevance in providing surface sea lanes for crucial logistics, and ground to several submarine telecommunication cables, it is anything but a simple, still and conflict-free part of the globe.
This complex mesh of activities and interests rests on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas – UNCLOS, a crucial international treaty establishing a legal framework, as well as dispute settlement mechanisms to the diversified issues that daily happen in such vast space. Before political dimensions and ambitions, there is an established corps of international public law that all actors involved must abide by.
The meeting could perhaps have given more attention to the UNCLOS, which pervaded, many times implicitly, the majority of the discussions. The different layers and markets, and the limits and subtle constraints on their activities, though the subject of varied panels and sessions, may have not remained very clear, particularly as regards India’s position in many of them."