Autonomous and Unmanned Vessels in International Law: Yara Birkeland as a Challenge to the Law of the Sea

Dynamic technological development and the growing demand for 'green technologies' have been the main reasons for the intensification of engineers' works on autonomous and unmanned vessels in recent years.

Currently, the partnership of the companies Yara and Kongsberg Maritime is the first one in the world to create a fully unmanned, environmentally friendly, partially autonomous cargo vessel Yara Birkeland.

Her operation is estimated to begin by mid-2020 and is to take place only within the territorial sea of Norway mainly due to numerous doubts regarding international legal regulations.

The unclear legal situation of autonomous and unmanned vessels stipulates one of the main grave obstacles for their worldwide operation.Due to their enormous potential, especially the possibility of limiting the human involvement in maritime transport (thus, lowering the fatality rate in the shipping industry), there is a strong demand to create an appropriate legal regime enabling their universal operation.

The possibility of making maritime transport less dependent on the human factor is significant for humanity, especially in the context of the recent pandemic of the SARS-COV-2 virus (their worldwide usage would also be a response to such disasters).The Project ADMIRAL will tackle the problem of the lack of exhaustive legal studies regarding the possibility of the operation of these types of vessels worldwide in the contemporary law of the sea and international maritime law systems.

Thus, this explorative study will analyze the legal situation of autonomous and unmanned vessels in international law.

The Project ADMIRAL aims to verify the central research hypothesis, which is that the contemporary law of the sea does not offer a satisfactory legal framework towards a worldwide operation of autonomous and unmanned vessels.

As a consequence, Project ADMIRAL will determine the regulatory barriers preventing their global operation and propose durable solutions.