James Stout

And so it is extremely hard

for these people to be held accountable for things that they do in international waters, right?

There are like industry standards that the industry itself sets in the same way that there are standards for cops that the cops themselves set.

And those have generally not been the best means of accountability, right?

In theory, anytime they engage someone, certainly if they kill someone, the ship's authorities should report that.

Yeah, hopefully.

Yeah, cool.

I'm sure they will.

I'm sure they love to do the paperwork.

But then who would they report it to, right?

Do they report it to the country they suspect the people they are shooting at?

Yeah.

Their country?

Do they report it to the flag of convenience country?

Do they report it to the company they work for?

I'm sure there is some jurisdiction of maritime law which would give us an answer to that.

But in practice...

there appears to be very little mechanism for accountability in the same way that there is very little mechanism for accountability for labour law violations at sea.

I would recommend if people haven't listened, there's a podcast called Outlaw Ocean.

It's probably five or six years old at this point.