Rob McLaughlin
Biographic Data
| ID | 5149662 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rob McLaughlin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rob |
| FAMILY NAME | McLaughlin |
| SIGNATURE | MCLAUGHLIN R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wollongong |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6543-2857 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Some current (and enduring) challenges in the application and interpretation of the law of naval warfare
As a nuanced and quite domain-specific subset of international humanitarian law (IHL), the law of naval warfare (LONW) occasionally differs from general IHL in terms of rule content, interpretation, and application. For example, the targeting regime in the LONW is primarily platform-based, while the concept of civilian direct participation in hostilities is significantly less relevant at sea. Similarly, the application of the common Article 2 thr…
Pirates of the Cyber Seas
Understanding the descriptors attached to cyber operations and cyber actors is crucial to communicating the nature of these entities and the influence they wield in cyberspace. Given the ever-increasing threat that corporations, governments, and the everyday consumer face from these entities, it is paramount that respondents evaluate and apply the most appropriate descriptors when communicating about such incidents. In this paper, we discuss whet…
The Final Frontier of Cyberspace
Cyberspace is now acknowledged not only as the newest domain of warfare, but also as a space vital to economic, educational and cultural development for all States. This thin consensus ignores the fundamental fact that the backbone of cyber infrastructure—submarine telecommunication cables—is not (for the large part) located within sovereign territorial jurisdiction. The radically increased reliance of States upon submarine data cables emphasises…
The Law of the Sea and PRC Gray-Zone Operations in the South China Sea
A growing number of incidents—particularly since 2009—highlight the South China Sea (SCS) as the preeminent venue for the People's Republic of China (PRC) maritime gray zone operations. “Gray zone operations” are, in essence, operations that are designed to exploit or create legal (and other) uncertainties for a military or strategic advantage. A prominent example is the way that China has used the so-called nine(ten)-dash line without fully expl…
Maritime Autonomous Vehicles
The ongoing development of diverse maritime autonomous vehicles for varied ocean activities—ranging from scientific research, security surveillance, transportation of goods, military purposes and commission of crimes—is prompting greater consideration of how existing legal frameworks accommodate these vehicles. This article brings together the core legal issues, as well as current developments in relation to commercial shipping, the law of naval …
Naval robots and rescue
The development of unmanned systems (UMS) for naval combat poses a profound challenge to existing conventions regarding the treatment of the shipwrecked and wounded in war at sea. Article 18 of the 1949 Geneva Convention II states that warring parties are required to take “all possible measures” to search for and collect seamen left in the water after each engagement. The authors of the present paper analyze the ethical basis of this convention a…
Towards a more effective counter-drugs regime in the Indian Ocean
Use of the Indian Ocean as a major drugs trafficking route – particularly for heroin originating in Afghanistan – poses a maritime security and a maritime law enforcement challenge. This article seeks to explore one dimension of this challenge – the lack of a ‘legal finish’ (such as prosecution) for the majority of drug seizures made within international waters in the Indian Ocean region. The article proposes three possible avenues towards improv…
Authorizations for maritime law enforcement operations
Although there are areas of uncertainty and overlap, authorizations for maritime law enforcement operations are beholden to a different regime from that which governs the conduct of armed conflict at sea. This article seeks to briefly describe five regularly employed authorizations for maritime law enforcement operations at sea: flag State consent, agreed pre-authorization, coastal State jurisdiction, UN Security Council resolutions, and the righ…
Irish Canadian Conflict and the Struggle for Irish Independence, 1912-1925
Between 1912 and 1925, Ireland convulsed with political and revolutionary upheaval in pursuit of self-government. Canadians of Irish descent, both Catholic and Protestant, diligently followed these conflicts, and many became actively involved in the dramatic events overseas. Irish Canadian Conflict and the Struggle for Irish Independence tells the unique story of how Irish Canadians identified with their ancestral homeland during this revolutiona…
Naval Force and the Conduct of Peace Support Operations
The inherent flexibility of naval force underpins its utility for peace support operations. An examination of the specific tasks - both fundamental and ancillary - which naval forces are generally required to undertake in the course of peace support operations reveals the practical nature and extent of this flexibility. This analysis also suggests that naval forces not only complement and occasionally enable the capabilities of land forces, but c…
United Nations Mandated Naval Interdiction Operations in the Territorial Sea
The practice of imposing economic sanctions in order to influence the actions of states and other parties—historically with varied levels of actual effectiveness—has a long and chequered history. 2 Given, however, that more than 90 per cent of the world's trade is carried by sea, 3 it is one particular form of sanction management—the ‘so called economic weapon’ of naval blockade— which tends to dominate the implementation of sanctions regimes. 4 …
The Law of the Sea and PRC Gray-Zone Operations in the South China Sea
A growing number of incidents—particularly since 2009—highlight the South China Sea (SCS) as the preeminent venue for the People's Republic of China (PRC) maritime gray zone operations. “Gray zone operations” are, in essence, operations that are designed to exploit or create legal (and other) uncertainties for a military or strategic advantage. A prominent example is the way that China has used the so-called nine(ten)-dash line without fully expl…
Towards a more effective counter-drugs regime in the Indian Ocean
Use of the Indian Ocean as a major drugs trafficking route – particularly for heroin originating in Afghanistan – poses a maritime security and a maritime law enforcement challenge. This article seeks to explore one dimension of this challenge – the lack of a ‘legal finish’ (such as prosecution) for the majority of drug seizures made within international waters in the Indian Ocean region. The article proposes three possible avenues towards improv…
United Nations Mandated Naval Interdiction Operations in the Territorial Sea
The practice of imposing economic sanctions in order to influence the actions of states and other parties—historically with varied levels of actual effectiveness—has a long and chequered history. 2 Given, however, that more than 90 per cent of the world's trade is carried by sea, 3 it is one particular form of sanction management—the ‘so called economic weapon’ of naval blockade— which tends to dominate the implementation of sanctions regimes. 4 …
The Final Frontier of Cyberspace
Cyberspace is now acknowledged not only as the newest domain of warfare, but also as a space vital to economic, educational and cultural development for all States. This thin consensus ignores the fundamental fact that the backbone of cyber infrastructure—submarine telecommunication cables—is not (for the large part) located within sovereign territorial jurisdiction. The radically increased reliance of States upon submarine data cables emphasises…
Maritime Autonomous Vehicles
The ongoing development of diverse maritime autonomous vehicles for varied ocean activities—ranging from scientific research, security surveillance, transportation of goods, military purposes and commission of crimes—is prompting greater consideration of how existing legal frameworks accommodate these vehicles. This article brings together the core legal issues, as well as current developments in relation to commercial shipping, the law of naval …
Naval Force and the Conduct of Peace Support Operations
The inherent flexibility of naval force underpins its utility for peace support operations. An examination of the specific tasks - both fundamental and ancillary - which naval forces are generally required to undertake in the course of peace support operations reveals the practical nature and extent of this flexibility. This analysis also suggests that naval forces not only complement and occasionally enable the capabilities of land forces, but c…
United Nations Mandated Naval Interdiction Operations in the Territorial Sea
The practice of imposing economic sanctions in order to influence the actions of states and other parties—historically with varied levels of actual effectiveness—has a long and chequered history. 2 Given, however, that more than 90 per cent of the world's trade is carried by sea, 3 it is one particular form of sanction management—the ‘so called economic weapon’ of naval blockade— which tends to dominate the implementation of sanctions regimes. 4 …
Irish Canadian Conflict and the Struggle for Irish Independence, 1912-1925
Between 1912 and 1925, Ireland convulsed with political and revolutionary upheaval in pursuit of self-government. Canadians of Irish descent, both Catholic and Protestant, diligently followed these conflicts, and many became actively involved in the dramatic events overseas. Irish Canadian Conflict and the Struggle for Irish Independence tells the unique story of how Irish Canadians identified with their ancestral homeland during this revolutiona…
Towards a more effective counter-drugs regime in the Indian Ocean
Use of the Indian Ocean as a major drugs trafficking route – particularly for heroin originating in Afghanistan – poses a maritime security and a maritime law enforcement challenge. This article seeks to explore one dimension of this challenge – the lack of a ‘legal finish’ (such as prosecution) for the majority of drug seizures made within international waters in the Indian Ocean region. The article proposes three possible avenues towards improv…
Authorizations for maritime law enforcement operations
Although there are areas of uncertainty and overlap, authorizations for maritime law enforcement operations are beholden to a different regime from that which governs the conduct of armed conflict at sea. This article seeks to briefly describe five regularly employed authorizations for maritime law enforcement operations at sea: flag State consent, agreed pre-authorization, coastal State jurisdiction, UN Security Council resolutions, and the righ…
Naval robots and rescue
The development of unmanned systems (UMS) for naval combat poses a profound challenge to existing conventions regarding the treatment of the shipwrecked and wounded in war at sea. Article 18 of the 1949 Geneva Convention II states that warring parties are required to take “all possible measures” to search for and collect seamen left in the water after each engagement. The authors of the present paper analyze the ethical basis of this convention a…
Maritime Autonomous Vehicles
The ongoing development of diverse maritime autonomous vehicles for varied ocean activities—ranging from scientific research, security surveillance, transportation of goods, military purposes and commission of crimes—is prompting greater consideration of how existing legal frameworks accommodate these vehicles. This article brings together the core legal issues, as well as current developments in relation to commercial shipping, the law of naval …
Pirates of the Cyber Seas
Understanding the descriptors attached to cyber operations and cyber actors is crucial to communicating the nature of these entities and the influence they wield in cyberspace. Given the ever-increasing threat that corporations, governments, and the everyday consumer face from these entities, it is paramount that respondents evaluate and apply the most appropriate descriptors when communicating about such incidents. In this paper, we discuss whet…
The Final Frontier of Cyberspace
Cyberspace is now acknowledged not only as the newest domain of warfare, but also as a space vital to economic, educational and cultural development for all States. This thin consensus ignores the fundamental fact that the backbone of cyber infrastructure—submarine telecommunication cables—is not (for the large part) located within sovereign territorial jurisdiction. The radically increased reliance of States upon submarine data cables emphasises…
The Law of the Sea and PRC Gray-Zone Operations in the South China Sea
A growing number of incidents—particularly since 2009—highlight the South China Sea (SCS) as the preeminent venue for the People's Republic of China (PRC) maritime gray zone operations. “Gray zone operations” are, in essence, operations that are designed to exploit or create legal (and other) uncertainties for a military or strategic advantage. A prominent example is the way that China has used the so-called nine(ten)-dash line without fully expl…
Some current (and enduring) challenges in the application and interpretation of the law of naval warfare
As a nuanced and quite domain-specific subset of international humanitarian law (IHL), the law of naval warfare (LONW) occasionally differs from general IHL in terms of rule content, interpretation, and application. For example, the targeting regime in the LONW is primarily platform-based, while the concept of civilian direct participation in hostilities is significantly less relevant at sea. Similarly, the application of the common Article 2 thr…
Political science (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Law (7 works) · International Maritime Law Issues (6 works) · Maritime Security and History (6 works) · International law (5 works) · Business (4 works) · Computer security (4 works) · International Law and Human Rights (4 works)