Earlier this week, we covered the recent acquittal of Nigeria’s former oil minister and former OPEC President Diezani Alison-Madueke in the UK, thus closing just one chapter in a long-standing corruption scandal.
At the end of last month, another long-standing case was resolved at the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), involving the injustice suffered by the owners and crew of the Marshall Islands flagged very large crude carrier Heroic Idun at the hands of the government of Equatorial Guinea in 2022. You can read the judgement here and marvel at the hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees clocked up by the two states in their litigation, with legal teams bigger than football teams cited on the front page.
This was a shocking case that we reported extensively between the detention of the vessel and its 26 crew in August 2022, until their release and acquittal in Nigeria in May 2023. They were detained for nearly three months without charge in that paragon of international justice, Equatorial Guinea, and were then coerced to sail the vessel to Nigeria, where they were again detained on trumped-up charges for another six months.
During the period in Equatorial Guinea, the crew were denied consular access or lawyers, and 15 of them were locked up without food or water in a detention centre as part of a campaign to compel them to sail the vessel back to Nigeria. They were needed to sail the ship because the Nigerians and the Equatorial Guineans themselves lacked the expertise to operate and navigate a VLCC safely.
"The treatment received by the crew shows a blatant disregard for basic human rights and international law," commented Rolf Thore Roppestad, the CEO of Norwegian insurer Gard at the time. "They have been held for more than 80 days, without any charges and without any legal representation locally to protect their interests. The situation is, quite frankly, outrageous."
The facts of the case were never disputed. The tanker, which had its AIS in operation, was approached by an unknown vessel at night on August 7, 2022, as it approached the deepwater Akpo oil field operated by TotalEnergies, 200 kilometres from Port Harcourt. It was there to load crude oil legitimately purchased by its charterer, BP. The terminal operator, TotalEnergies, was expecting to discharge oil to Heroic Idun and all the paperwork and procedures for export had been correctly followed.
An unknown, intercepting boat approached in the darkness and demanded over the radio that the tanker stop and allow its personnel to board. The vessel claimed to be from the Nigerian Navy. However, this interceptor did not have its AIS switched on and its identity could not be independently verified.
The master of Heroic Idun consulted with Inchcape Shipping, the vessel's agents in Nigeria, which could not confirm that this unit was a legitimate Nigerian Navy patrol. The tanker captain believed it could be a pirate attack, in an area notorious for hostage taking and piracy, so he headed away, south, at full speed, with the tanker’s crew sheltering in the citadel for safety, having taken the advice of war risk insurers DNK and the vessel’s technical managers OSM.
A mayday was given, and this alerted the flag state and the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre to the possible attack. The tanker managed to make it to international waters and evaded its pursuer (which did transpire to be a Nigerian Navy patrol boat).
Having escaped Nigerian waters, Heroic Idun was drifting in the waters of São Tomé and Príncipe awaiting clearances, south of Equatorial Guinea. It was here that the tanker was arrested by the navy of Equatorial Guinea and forced to return to that state, where it was detained on August 12, 2022, for alleged illegal entry into Equatorial Guinean waters.
The Norwegian owners eventually paid a fine of US$2 million at the end of September for the supposed crime of failing to fly the flag of Equatorial Guinea during its transit. The fine was paid against a promise of release of the vessel and its crew by the local authorities.
Well, guess what?
The Equatorial Guinea Government reneged on the deal and cut a separate deal with Nigeria instead. The government pocketed US$2 million from the owners and then broke its own promise, compelling the tanker's crew to return the vessel to Nigeria where they were further detained and another outrageously large charge was extorted levied by the Nigerian Navy to ensure the release of the ship.
As we highlighted at the time, Equatorial Guinea is the country where the President's son, also the Vice President since 2016, has been convicted of money laundering and stealing US$150 million of state funds, whilst living the high life in Europe (here).
The Marshall Islands, as flag state, promptly took the government of Equatorial Guinea to ITLOS.
The Marshall Islands submitted that, by intercepting the Vessel on August 12, 2022 in the EEZ of São Tomé and Príncipe, forcing it to divert course to Luba anchorage, and detaining it there, Equatorial Guinea acted in breach of the Marshall Islands’ rights to freedom of navigation and exclusive flag state jurisdiction contrary to Articles 87(1), 90, and 92(1) of UNCLOS, having regard to Article 58(2).
ITLOS delivered its judgment and ruled comprehensively in favour of the Marshall Islands. The Special Chamber awarded €2,000,132 (US$2,322,000), representing the ridiculous fine imposed on the master, and more than US$12 million in damages, including US$5.9 million for loss of hire to the owners, and just under US$4.2 million for non-material damage suffered by the crew. It is the highest award ever made by ITLOS.
Note that the case only concerns the case between Equatorial Guinea and the flag state, not Nigeria.
In its summary of the case, law firm Reed Smith noted that there were five major takeaways from the case, which we reproduce here, and which provide important defence for crew against future ill treatment by littoral states. Reed Smith stated the following:
Robust reaffirmation of freedom of navigation. The Special Chamber unanimously held that Equatorial Guinea’s interception of the vessel in the EEZ of São Tomé and Príncipe, including by threatening force and diverting it to Luba Freeport, breached freedom of navigation under Articles 87(1), 90, and 92(1) of UNCLOS (as applicable to EEZs via Article 58(2)). Any physical interference with navigation of a foreign-flagged vessel, including compelling a change of course under threat, violates freedom of navigation unless justified by the convention or other international treaties.
The Special Chamber rejected the argument that the case was inadmissible because Nigeria was not a party to it, holding that the legality of Equatorial Guinea’s conduct could be assessed independently of Nigeria’s rights and interests. A state that takes enforcement action against a foreign-flagged vessel on the basis of a request from another state cannot avoid accountability by arguing that the requesting state is an indispensable party.
The duty to cooperate in repressing piracy does not confer autonomous enforcement powers. The Special Chamber confirmed that any enforcement action on grounds of piracy must conform strictly to Articles 101 to 107, read with Article 110. A coastal or third state cannot rely on a generalised duty of state cooperation to prevent piracy as a basis to board, seize, or divert a vessel without satisfying the specific enforcement conditions in the convention.
Forcible transfer of a vessel and crew to a third state constitutes a separate violation. The forcible transfer of the vessel and crew to Nigeria constituted a further violation of the Marshall Islands’ rights. A detaining state cannot divest itself of responsibility by transferring a vessel and crew to a third state. The rights of the flag state continue to apply, and such a transfer compounds rather than resolves the original breach.
Flag states can assert claims for the treatment of crew. The mistreatment of the crew during detention was attributable to Equatorial Guinea and constituted a violation of the Marshall Islands’ flag state rights. Local remedies did not need to be exhausted because the crew’s presence was the direct result of Equatorial Guinea’s own contested enforcement actions rather than any voluntary act. This confirms that a flag state has standing to bring claims for crew mistreatment, and that the remedy exhaustion requirement does not apply where individuals are present in a state’s territory solely because of that state’s unlawful conduct.
All these are important points, and the latter is a welcome assertion of crew welfare and crew rights in the face of heavy-handed littoral state behaviour.
Reed Smith noted that the ITLOS judgement specifically stated the following:
“Equatorial Guinea bears responsibility for the injury caused by its internationally wrongful act, including the mistreatment of the crew and the procedural injustices imposed upon them during their detention in Equatorial Guinea, and attributable to the acts and omissions of the Equatoguinean authorities.”
Accordingly, the Special Chamber found that:
“The treatment of the crew, by Equatoguinean authorities, during their detention, including their forced transfer to a third state, was in violation of the rights of the Marshall Islands under the convention.”
The case is also pertinent to the discussions relating to the seizure of "dark fleet" vessels carrying sanctioned Russian oil (but, of course, that depends on the vessels involved having a legitimate and valid flag state registry, which many do not). We also note that the United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and has not ratified the treaty.
This is unfortunate, because if you thought that Equatorial Guinea’s behaviour was outrageous, just wait until you see what has been happening in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, where both Iran and the United States have been attacking shipping and killing civilian seafarers on board vessels owned and flagged to third party states. The drone attacks by the Iranians have been widely and correctly condemned and covered in the media. Lobbing drones at hotels, airports and ships in neighbouring states is an outrageous breach of international law by Tehran.
However, less well covered is the killing of seafarers by the American Navy. On June 9, US forces fired what they described as "precision munitions" (actually Hellfire missiles) into the engine room of Settebello, a Palau-flagged vessel with 28 crew on board, mainly Indian nationals, roughly 20 nautical miles northeast of the Omani port of Sohar. You can view the video here.
Needless to say, firing missiles into a moving tanker seems gratuitously unnecessary when techniques like boarding have been used to great effect by littoral states including the US itself, the UK, France, and Sweden.
The US Navy has maintained that the tanker had ignored close to 60 verbal warnings as well as warnings like flares and flyovers from US military aircraft before missiles were launched against it.
The survivors were rescued by the Omani Navy, but three Indian seafarers – identified as deck cadet Aditya Sharma from Himachal Pradesh, engine fitter Shivanand Chaurasiya, and chief engineer Patnala Suresh – died in the incident.
The Times of India reported that Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar raised the issue with his American counterpart Marco Rubio, describing it as an unacceptable use of lethal force against civilian shipping. Mr Rubio told him that the US would not tolerate any attempt to evade the blockade, and that he should take a hike.
US CENTCOM said the ship had violated America's blockade of Iranian ports and refused to comply with its directions, so it was “disabled.” However, the vessel was not subject to American sanctions and was in ballast at the time of the attack.
The Hindustan Times has highlighted that Settebello was owned by Aqua Aurora Shipping Lines and operated by IOS Marine FZ, both based in the UAE, although public records show Aqua Aurora once listed a Chandigarh address registered to Global Tankers, a firm controlled by UAE-based Indian national Jugwinder Singh Brar, whom the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control had sanctioned on April 12, 2025. Palau is a shoddy flag state as we have highlighted, and the vessel may well have ignored US Navy instructions.
However, does that really justify killing the crew? Would any jury believe that the vessel was a threat, or that attacking a tanker with missiles was the only option open to the American navy to intercept the vessel?
The Heroic Idun case casts shame on Equatorial Guinea, but it has been resolved in accordance with international law. The Settebello case is a magnitude worse, but the chances that those who killed the three seafarers will be held accountable seems scant.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared that “lethality” is the objective of the American armed forces, but killing cadets on empty tankers is not the display of military might he believes it to be. Neither Iran, nor Israel nor the United States has respected the rights of civilians and especially not of seafarers in this futile and bloody conflict. The sooner it ends and seafarers can sail safely, the better.
We would remind Mr Hegseth and his Israeli allies that, as Francis Bacon wrote, if we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.
Background reading
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs statement condemning the killing of the three Indian seafarers on Settebello is here.
The American think tank the Stimson Center has an excellent piece on The Perils of Lethality:
“But if there is one lesson from the post-9/11 wars, it is that lethality divorced from larger strategic considerations is a political and military loser… Victory doesn’t come from more effectively killing the enemy. Success entails achieving realistic and useful political objectives at a reasonable cost. America’s recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t fail because America didn’t kill enough Iraqis and Afghans – they failed because the strategy in both conflicts was poorly thought-out, unrealistic and difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.”