Security Council Open Debate: Maritime Security: Prevention, innovation and international cooperation to address emerging challenges
Statement by H.E Ambassador James Larsen, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations
12 August 2025
Thank you, President, and I thank Panama for proposing and hosting this timely debate.
The ocean and seas are the lifeblood of global trade and home to the majority of the earth’s biodiversity.
In safeguarding this precious, shared resource, we all benefit from a maritime domain in which differences are settled peacefully in accordance with international law.
The United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is the foundation for peace, security and stability in the maritime domain, setting out the legal framework within which all activities in the ocean and seas must be carried out.
We reject excessive and unlawful maritime claims that are inconsistent with UNCLOS.
Conduct that limits other countries’ ability to exercise their sovereign rights is not acceptable. Nor is activity that impedes the freedoms of navigation and overflight.
Australia is concerned by behaviour that risks miscalculation and escalation in the maritime domain, particularly in the South China Sea, where we have seen dangerous and aggressive actions, including against the Philippines and Vietnam.
Meanwhile, damage to undersea cables in the Baltic and elsewhere has caused economic and other harm to our interconnected global community.
But just as these challenges are real, so too are cooperative efforts to find solutions that abide by, and further strengthen, principles and rules of international law, particularly UNCLOS.
These principles are deeply embedded in the Indo-Pacific.
We see this in the unanimous and clear ruling in 2016 by the Arbitral Tribunal in the South China Sea arbitration between the Philippines and China, constituted under UNCLOS.
The Arbitral Tribunal's findings are final and binding on the Philippines and China.
In ratifying UNCLOS, states agree to be bound by its compulsory dispute resolution mechanisms – we cannot simply ignore rulings that we don’t like.
We also see it in the agreement between our regional friends - Vietnam and Indonesia - to delimit their Exclusive Economic Zone after 12 years of negotiations, peacefully and in accordance with international law.
This provides a clear example of how long-unresolved maritime boundaries can be delimited peacefully and successfully.
Australia is investing in supporting our regional partners to meet maritime challenges.
In doing so, we are embracing the opportunities that novel technologies offer.
In the Pacific, we’re providing satellite data and building greater analytical expertise through the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, which delivers fisheries maritime domain awareness training and intelligence analysis support to the region.
In Southeast Asia, we're harnessing cutting edge Reef Scan technology to protect corals, enhance maritime domain awareness and support sustainable marine resource management.
And in the Indian Ocean, we're supporting regional responses to emerging threats by facilitating regional capacity development on emerging technologies and tools for regional information sharing, including for vessel detection and underwater domain awareness.
As we confront new and ongoing challenges, it is vital that we act and lift our voices in support of the existing legal framework, particularly UNCLOS, to shape the maritime domain we want - ocean, seas and waterways where all countries can cooperate, trade and thrive.
We welcome today’s open debate to identify opportunities for greater cooperation on critical maritime security issues.
Thank you.