LEGAL & REGULATORY MATTERS HOW TO BE ONBOARD IN A MARITIME SPATIAL PLANNING INITIATIVE? By Andrés Fígoli
M
aritime Spatial Planning or MSP initiatives may consist of a set of frameworks and processes used to manage and regulate human activities in the marine environment in a sustainable and coordinated way. Their aim is to balance the interests of the environment, society, and economy, promoting the sustainable development of the marine space by permitting or restricting specific actions in the sea and along the coast. Typically, a coastal state consults any new MSP legal framework with seabed users and other stakeholders, including environmental groups and local communities, to harmonize their inquiries, reach a consensus, and issue the new regulation. Accordingly, all stakeholders are supposed to be actively involved in the development of the MSP consultation process through meetings and workshops. The purpose is to gather their input and feedback, leading to a final assessment before implementing new policies, plans, or regulations1. Submarine cable owners with assets in their jurisdictional waters are usually invited to participate in workshops or roundtables. During these engagements, they must defend their current ground and anticipate potential issues and challenges associated with proposed regulations, bearing in mind new cable project scenarios in the upcoming years. Careful assessment 1 See Martínez, Mencía and Melo, Rita. “Recent Marine Spatial Planning Developments and its Impacts on Regulatory Approvals for Submarine Telecommunication Cables. A Study Case for Belgium, Cyprus and Greece.” SubTel Forum, Issue 129, March 2023.
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of the regulations’ application and consequences is crucial for these owners to maintain the reliability of their subsea infrastructure and mitigate additional risks to their assets. Failure to do so may even eliminate the possibility of future cable landings in their own cable stations.
Typically, a coastal state consults any new MSP legal framework with seabed users and other stakeholders, including environmental groups and local communities, to harmonize their inquiries, reach a consensus, and issue the new regulation. ALWAYS BE ONBOARD
“It is better to be at the table than on the table.” While there may not be immediate short-term benefits with this MPS consultations, the long-term outcomes are expected to be based on: • the future development of incipient industries, such as integrated offshore wind and tidal energy • the emergence of new technologies, such as buoys in open ocean aquaculture • potential advancements in the cable industry, such as SMART cables,
and underwater surveillance drones. While it is true that a forwardthinking marine spatial planning can make seabed impact more “manageable,” it is important to acknowledge that some of these changing factors are difficult to calculate or predict with our current technological constraints.
RISKS TO AVOID OR, AT LEAST, MINIMIZE
There is no doubt that multiple submarine cable outages in the past could have been reasonably prevented if fair regulations had been in place since the first decade of the 21st century. Unfortunately, lawmakers did not foresee the boom of the fiber optic subsea cable industry and that led to bottlenecks of several cables in the same zone. This situation increased the risk of multiple cable outages occurring simultaneously in the same day and area. However, it is fair to say that even with the best AIS/VMS monitoring system, a local navy may not be able to prevent a merchant ship from breaking three cables with its anchor to avoid sinking during a stormy night. Moreover, it is indeed a good legal practice that many countries have already embraced the implementation of safety corridors for new projected cables within their maritime boundaries. The effectiveness of these corridors is directly related to the key participation of the fishing industry in MSP discussions and a debate centered on solid and transparent scientific data, such as fishing migration and captures. This is an opportunity to build trust and credibility among the fishing and