International Journal of Maritime Policy

Exploiting the bed and subbed of the seas which are outside the governments’ sovereignty is always discussed since the countries severely need to these resources and the technological progress makes it possible to exploit these areas. Present study aims to respond this question that how resources of bed and subbed of the seas outside governments’ sovereignty are exploit based on law perspective, and how can analyze juridical attitude in this issue. In law perspective, according to the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Seas, these areas are the common heritage of humanity and International Seabed Authority is responsible in this field. In Islamic jurisprudence, exploitation of properties which do not belong to a specific person and freely are in access the public is named Anfal. But the bed and subbed of the seas are not included in any of the territories such as Dar al-Harb defined by the jurists, because no government have the right to claim sovereignty over these areas, and Dar al-Kofr is not in charge of these areas either. It is necessary to act based on international treaties and customary in such a situation. It means that Dar al-Islam is committed to act in accordance with existing international treaties and customary. Even if Dar al-Islam has not accepted any treaties regarding the bed and subbed of the seas, it is committed to implement international regulations based on international customary since international customary has known the bed and subbed of the seas outside the governments’ sovereignty as the common heritage of humanity.

The seabed chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is an authority for dispute settlement in seabed area cases. This chamber, in nature, is a specific judiciary for dispute resolution of this marine area in the tribunal. First, the governments must settle their disputes based on one of the peaceful resolution methods, and then should refer to the tribunal in case of agreement. Compared to the International Court of Justice in referring to dispute settlement, the most important feature of the tribunal and its chamber is the creation of a specific chamber and dispute settlement through arbitration and the presence of a special judge for dispute parties. Moreover, the seabed chamber can issue an advisory opinion, if required. Therefore, the jurisdiction of the chamber depends on two kinds of optional and compulsory jurisdictions of the tribunal, so that contractors and their guaranteeing states have joint liability for international seabed authority. It should be noted that states are responsible for an action and omission of the act causing harm in the seabed and under the seabed only in case of failure to apply their regulatory advice for contractors. The first and most important compensation for harm to the seabed is prevention from more hazards against seabed and under the seabed. Furthermore, immediate notification to coastal authorities and states, postliminium (restoration of the status formerly possessed), and complete compensation are forms of respective actions.

The naval conflict has undergone many changes due to environmental factors and various tools, as well as the increasing growth and development of marine technologies, aligned with the inclusion of new tools and methods in naval conflict and electronic warfare at sea. The procedure taken by countries indicates the acceptance of electronic warfare as one of the methods and tools of agreed warfare. However, from the perspective of international humanitarian law, the use of electronic warfare tools and methods is challenging, and international treaty law lacks a legal rule regarding this method of warfare. Indeed, the only guideline that has sought to regulate electronic warfare is the Air and Missile Warfare Directive, which imposes no legal requirements on governments. So the question we are going to answer in this brief is that, can humanitarian law be applied to electronic warfare? The purpose of this study is to explain and investigate the various dimensions of naval electronic warfare from the perspective of international humanitarian law, and proving that international humanitarian law can be applied to the methods and tools of electronic warfare at sea. The research method selected for the present paper is an analytical-explanatory method and the data collection method used is the library research method.

The formation and activity of naval alliances formed in the waters of southern Iran may lead to a critical situation in the region and an increase in military tension between the naval units of the Iranian army and the military units of the coalition forces. In response to this question, the current research, what roles can the Navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran play in confronting naval coalitions? This research is applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in nature. For this purpose, qualitative data was collected by using a questionnaire and through semi-structured interviews with 12 experts and specialists of the Navy, and then by using the method of foundational data theory, the data were coded through three stages of open coding. Axial and selective coding was analyzed and the result was 8 general categories, which in the form of a paradigm model include causal conditions (building power at sea and confidence building at sea), axial category (maritime geopolitical position of Iran), conditions Background (naval knowledge and naval ability), intervening conditions (diplomacy capacities), strategy (development of oceanic navy) and consequence (strengthening of Iran's naval power) were introduced.

Throughout history, Iran has always been exposed to many natural and unnatural crises due to its geographical, economic, cultural, natural, and political characteristics, and especially its location in the strategic region of the Middle East. This study aims to investigate the position and role of the logistics capacities of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRI Navy henceforth) in encountering the natural disaster crisis. The entire participants included 120 senior officers of the Deputy of Readiness and Support, the heads of readiness and support of the affiliated regions and bases, and the middle managers of the headquarters and ranks of the Readiness and Support Command of Najaf among whom 92 were selected randomly based on Krejcie and Morgan’s (19700 table. Data were collected quantitatively using researcher-made disaster management questionnaires and IRI Navy preparedness capacities. Then, the validity of the questionnaire was assessed through confirmatory factor analysis and its reliability was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha. To test the hypotheses and the accuracy of the conceptual model of the research, the structural equation modeling method using the partial least squares (PLS) method was used. Findings indicated the significance of the IRI Navy's preparedness hypotheses on managing and reducing the damage caused by the natural disaster crisis. The results showed that the component of responsibility had the highest rank and importance and the components of timeliness, information, and technology, coordination, mobile systems, efficiency, and preparedness were among the next priorities of logistics capacity in case of encountering a natural disaster crisis, respectively.

In the third millennium, the number of environmental variables and the nature of the complex relationships between them have resulted in the complexity of competition in the business. Accordingly, the role of organizational intangible capital has been more touchable than ever. Actually, as the intensity of competition increases, the importance of intangible capital enhances and the importance of physical and fixed capital decreases. Due to its geopolitical situation and the presence of extensive maritime boundaries in the north and south, Iran possesses countless strengths and opportunities to obtain maximum resources and benefits from this God-given blessing. Therefore, preservation and expansion of maritime institutions in Iran has been raised as an undeniable necessity in all short- and long-term government plans. This study aims to have policy making regarding the management of organizational intangible capital and its impact on knowledge productivity in maritime institutions of the country. Participants were the experts of Iran’s maritime organizations, which include IRI strategic Navy, the Ports and Maritime Organization, and the National Iranian Tanker Company. Standard questionnaires were employed for data collection. Results showed that focusing on intangible organizational capital in the policy making of maritime institutions can have a significant impact on knowledge productivity in them, which can lead to benefiting from national capacities in maritime studies.