Coalition of 18 Maritime Powers Warns Global Trading Architecture Faces Structural Fracturing

DUBAI / LONDON / SINGAPORE — In a historic joint declaration titled In Defence of Free Shipping, the Consultative Shipping Group (CSG)—an informal multilateral forum uniting the maritime authorities of 18 leading shipping nations across Europe, Asia, and North America—has issued a stark warning regarding the rapid proliferation of an unregulated "shadow fleet" operating in and around the Strait of Hormuz and the wider Persian Gulf basin.

The joint declaration, endorsed by maritime administrations representing more than 20% of global merchant fleet tonnage—including the United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Canada, and the Netherlands—warns that the compounding pressures of geopolitical confrontations, contested maritime chokepoints, and sanctions-evasion operations are no longer episodic anomalies. Instead, the CSG declared them a structural shift threatening to fracture international shipping into an unstable, two-tier trading regime.

The Emergence of a Two-Tier Shipping Regime

At the heart of the CSG’s public advisory is the rapid expansion of aging, poorly maintained, and opaque commercial vessels operating outside verified International Group of P&I Clubs underwriting, Western classification standards, and flag-state safety registries:

  • The "Two-Tier" Operating Environment: The group cautioned that international maritime commerce is splitting into two parallel realities: a transparent tier governed by established international maritime law, and an unregulated shadow tier operating in opacity, undermining fair commercial competition and maritime predictability.

  • Operating in the Dark: A growing proportion of tankers operating across the Strait of Hormuz systematically disable their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders, broadcast false GPS coordinates via sophisticated spoofing systems, and execute complex ship-to-ship (STS) cargo transfers in open water under cover of darkness.

  • Environmental and Collision Catastrophe: Lacking certified protection and indemnity (P&I) liability coverage, these vessels represent catastrophic ecological hazards. In the event of a high-energy collision, grounding, or catastrophic oil discharge in the narrow Hormuz transit corridors, sovereign littoral states and commercial salvage operators would be left without enforceable compensation mechanisms under the Civil Liability Convention (CLC).

Operational Realities: Strait of Hormuz Bottlenecks & Marine Underwriting

  • Plummeting Monitored Traffic: Real-time maritime tracking data indicates that verified commercial commodity transits through Hormuz have contracted sharply amid escalating regional conflict and retaliatory threats, with some days registering single-digit commercial vessel passages.

  • War-Risk Underwriting Premiums: London-market joint war committee underwriters have progressively elevated additional premium rates (AP) for commercial merchant hulls entering the Arabian Gulf, inflating round-trip voyage expenses for compliant bulkers, container liners, and gas carriers.

  • Macroeconomic Spillover: As UNCTAD and maritime economists note, elevated freight surcharges, rising bunker fuel expenditures, and rerouted tonnage ripple directly into consumer supply chains, inflating landed import costs for crude oil, refined distillates, and agricultural fertilizers.

Multilateral Appeal: Defending UNCLOS and Global Free Navigation

Stressing that shipping functions as the indispensable foundation of global food, manufacturing, and energy stability, the Consultative Shipping Group warned against fragmented, unilateral regulatory responses, advocating instead for the rigorous application of existing international treaties:

"Without functioning maritime trade, supply chains would fragment and the global economy as we know it would come to a sudden halt. When shipping supply chains fragment, the global economy fragments with it. Geopolitical pressures on shipping are not episodic shocks, but signals of a structural shift in the operating environment of global trade. We call on maritime nations to actively defend freedom of navigation, reject discriminatory trade measures, and enforce existing international frameworks under UNCLOS and IMO Resolution A.1192(33) to preserve a level playing field for world shipping."

Brian Wessel, Director-General of the Danish Maritime Authority and Chairman of the CSG, reiterated that upholding open maritime navigation is not a restriction on sovereign authority, but an essential precondition for the survival of interconnected global trade networks.