Shipwrecked Facts and Drowned Context
Dead Law, Live Lies: How Guardian “Experts” Keep Resurrecting Legal Corpses
William Schabas and his Guardian echo chamber are pulling the same tired trick international-law romantics always use: pretend that century-old wartime rules magically govern modern maritime interdiction, counter-narcotics, and sovereignty enforcement. They don’t. Not legally. Not operationally. Not in reality.
The sleight of hand is simple.
They cite World War I submarine cases, sprinkle in Geneva-era language, and then quietly skip over the last 80+ years of treaties, bilateral agreements, maritime conventions, and enforcement frameworks that replaced them. That omission isn’t accidental — it’s the entire scam.
Here’s the part they don’t want you to notice
There is no single, overriding “international law” governing modern maritime interdiction. There is a patchwork:
- Bilateral and multilateral maritime enforcement agreements
- Flag-state consent regimes
- UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) distinctions
- Drug interdiction treaties (e.g., 1988 Vienna Convention)
- Rules of engagement authorised by domestic law
- Sovereignty-based enforcement doctrines
Schabas waves all of that away like it’s irrelevant trivia. It isn’t. It’s the law.
Shipwreck survivors ≠ protected civilians by default
The Guardian wants readers to believe that anyone who ends up in the water is instantly transformed into a sacred, untouchable civilian under “international law.” That’s nonsense.
In modern maritime operations:
- Status matters (combatant, criminal actor, stateless vessel operator)
- Context matters (armed conflict vs law enforcement)
- Jurisdiction matters (flag state, consent, treaty authority)
- Intent matters (hostile action, evasion, threat continuation)
There is no universal rule saying “once wet, immune.” That idea exists only in op-eds and law-school hypotheticals.
What Schabas is really doing
He’s laundering normative preference as binding law.
He wants a world where international tribunals retroactively police enforcement actions taken under sovereign authority. So he pretends:
- No new agreements exist
- No modern enforcement regimes matter
- No evolution of maritime law occurred post-WWII
- No distinction exists between war and interdiction
That isn’t scholarship. It’s advocacy with footnotes.
The uncomfortable truth
If Schabas were right, every maritime drug-interdiction program on earth would be illegal, including those endorsed by the UN itself. Coast guards, navies, joint task forces — all war criminals, apparently.
Funny how the people actually enforcing these treaties don’t seem to agree.
This isn’t law. It’s narrative warfare
Guardian pieces like this aren’t written to clarify the law. They’re written to:
- Blur sovereignty
- Undermine enforcement legitimacy
- Retroactively criminalize political opponents
- Elevate academics over states
And they rely on readers not knowing the difference between customary law, treaty law, domestic authorization, and jurisdictional consent.
Final verdict
Schabas isn’t confused.
He’s selective.
He ignores modern maritime law because it kills his argument. So he resurrects dead cases, strips them of context, and sells them as timeless truth.
That’s not education.
That’s legal necromancy.
And no amount of Guardian ink makes it binding.
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