Maral Javidbakht, Autonomous Ships and Flag State Attribution and Responsibility

This chapter explores when shipmaster conduct triggers Flag State responsibility. While individual acts are not attributable to States, exceptions arise from special State-individual relationships. Influenced by the shipmaster’s traditional role as agent and navigator, the modern role includes a range of internationally codified duties. If stemming from Flag State obligations, the shipmaster fulfills them, supported by two ARSIWA exceptions to non-attributability: (1) when individuals act under State control; (2) when the State fails to prevent conduct. Flag State responsibility for shipmasters’ conduct evolves in rescue violations. It arises when States fail to ensure shipmasters assist persons in distress where reasonably possible without endangering lives onboard, or when rescued persons face treatment violating international refugee law, including human rights law. This chapter re-assesses Flag State responsibility by examining whether shipmasters’ conduct is attributable based on their humanity or presence onboard. It also evaluates when private conduct is attributable to the Flag State, based on (1) organ/agent status under ARSIWA and (2) the State’s due diligence in preventing unlawful acts. Attributability depends on vessel ownership, breached obligations, and the State’s role in prevention. The chapter expands ARSIWA attribution analysis to autonomous ship operations, where shipmasters are absent or replaced by decision-making artificial intelligence.

The Introduction frames the book’s research within the local histories and sociopolitical dynamics of the Chinese–Russian border region, which have fostered the creation and popularisation of the ‘Russian brides’ village myth in Northeast China. It explores how Chinese–Russian marriages have come to symbolise an idealised form of transnational union in Chinese media narratives. This chapter also outlines the book’s theoretical and methodological approaches, introducing the concepts of hyperreality and intimate and embodied geopolitics. It provides a roadmap for its central arguments, guiding the reader through its interdisciplinary analysis.

This chapter documents how post-Soviet women navigate the complexities of their children’s citizenship status in China, using the concept of ‘embodied border sites’ where racialised geopolitics intersect with individual values and family norms. It explores how issues of citizenship, identity and race shape the experiences of foreign mothers in determining where their children ‘belong’ nationally. I argue that, faced with their own precarious legal and economic status – and the constant fear of separation from their children, these mothers often leverage their native citizenship or informal dual-citizenship arrangements to protect their parental rights within China’s strict single-citizenship rules. The chapter details how China’s citizenship and immigration laws restrict foreign spouses on ‘family visitor’ visas from fully integrating into the reproductive and familial aspects of marriage, leading to difficult negotiations over their children’s citizenship status. These challenges underscore the inequalities embedded in family life for foreign mothers, who continually negotiate their parental rights and sense of belonging within a restrictive legal landscape.

This chapter offers an audiovisual exploration of a group wedding festival held on the Chinese–Russian border during the late summer festival of qixi jie [七夕节]. The official goal of this event is to strengthen Chinese–Russian relations, transforming a traditional celebration into an occasion for the articulation and celebration of international love and desire. The symbolic significance of the location, timing and aesthetics of the event, alongside the national, racial and gender identities of the participants, reveals key insights into China’s national aspirations. I argue that this state-sponsored group wedding is not simply a reflection of China’s foreign relations, nor is it an incidental event – it serves as a crucial site for observing and interrogating China’s geopolitical imaginaries and national desires. Furthermore, it provides a space for both reinforcing and contesting these aspirations through the performance of international love, gender roles, and an ideal form of marriage.

Natalia Perez, Advances in Underwater Archaeology

Underwater archaeology serves to understand cultural heritage, artifacts, sites, and objects. It advances with technology, enhancing the ability to locate and study shipwrecks. Shipwrecks are a key element under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. This paper examines how underwater archaeology technologies impact the rights of coastal and flag states to access shipwrecks in maritime zones and to collaborate in preserving underwater cultural heritage. It considers wreck locations, vessel types, and the flag state of archaeological ships. The analysis focuses on warships, which may enjoy sovereign immunity, in contrast to other kinds of shipwrecked vessels. Relevant UNCLOS articles, such as 33, 149, and 303, emphasize the protection of objects at sea and warn against infringing upon another state’s rights when retrieving archaeological finds from the seabed. The change is significant as technology increases access to inaccessible sites. The paper explores side-scan sonar, unmanned surface vehicles, and specific underwater imaging technologies. These technologies enable states to study and access shipwrecks across ocean zones. This chapter examines UNCLOS, the Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention, concerning rights to access wrecks within and beyond national jurisdiction amid growing ocean exploration.

This chapter delves into the realities behind dominant Chinese narratives of ‘beautiful and happy’ Chinese–Russian international marriages by foregrounding the voices and experiences of migrant women from former Soviet republics who moved to China. Through personal stories shared by women who moved from the mid-1990s to the late 2010s, this chapter reveals a complex and layered picture that contrasts with prevailing stereotypes of marriage migration. While popular perceptions in China and the former Soviet states suggest that most women migrate to escape difficult conditions in the Russian Far East, settling permanently in Northeast China, the women’s accounts reveal diverse motivations and pathways. By tracing their stories of cross-border romance and the challenges of adapting to life in China, I argue that these diverse narratives reflect a shifting perception of white femininity within China’s transformations and global aspirations. Although white femininity is a desirable asset valorising Chinese masculinity and national image, its value remains constrained, insofar as it serves China’s patriarchal domestic sphere.

The conclusion synthesises the book’s arguments, highlighting how marriage and migration serve as pivotal sites for examining the intersection of geopolitical and intimate projects. It reveals the complex relationship between national desire, family, marriage and race within China’s quest to realise the China Dream. The war in Ukraine further amplified these narratives, reinforcing the image of China as a rising force capable of stepping in where other nations falter. A relational approach to China’s interactions with the world, particularly through the lenses of gender and race, necessitates an exploration of the historical, geographical and normative dynamics that shape China’s self–other relations. Russia, in this context, serves as a critical node, connecting China to the racialised global order through its proximity, historical ties and shared geopolitical outlooks. The gendered and racialised dimensions of these processes highlight that national security and international relations are deeply intertwined with intimate relations.

Murat Sumer, Port Jurisdiction and Remotely Controlled Ships

Jurisdiction institutionalizes shipping regulation, rooted in State sovereignty. States act as flag, coastal, or port authorities. While UNCLOS prioritizes flag States’ jurisdiction, it also recognizes ports as enforcers of international maritime compliance and provides the legal foundation for State jurisdictions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) creates treaties. The synergy between UNCLOS and IMO adapts the legal framework to emerging challenges. This paper examines the interplay between UNCLOS and IMO regulating MASS and its implications for port and coastal States’ responsibilities and navigational rights. This study assesses the navigational rights to MASS. While port States possess discretion in setting entry conditions, it discusses the legal basis of port State jurisdiction and key elements of autonomy. It explores the rights of semi- and fully autonomous ships to call at foreign ports and analyzes port States’ discretion in regulating MASS entry. Despite UNCLOS and IMO regulations hesitating to regulate ports directly, the advent of MASS operations necessitates port States’ role in ensuring compliance with international norms. This paper examines IMO’s mandate regarding the introduction of MASS. It questions whether IMO plays a proactive role in encouraging Member States, through developing Generally Accepted International Rules and Standards (GAIRS), to welcome such ships in ports.

This chapter examines the visual narratives through which China’s ‘China Dream’ of global rise idealises a particular type of international marriage: a union between a Chinese man and a white woman who is transformed into an obedient daughter-in-law absorbed into Chinese patriarchal structures. Analysing three Chinese TV dramas and a fiction film that highlight pivotal moments in Chinese–Russian relations across three decades of reform (1990–2010s), the chapter explores how these cultural products construct a consistent portrayal of the white woman – strong, intelligent, beautiful and independent – who ultimately submits to Confucian patriarchal values under the guidance of a Chinese man. By connecting televised portrayals of Chinese–Russian romance with broader political and public discourses on China’s foreign relations, this chapter uncovers the role of cinematic geopolitics in creating a hyperreality that bridges fantasy and the everyday.

9.1 INTRODUCTION [LO1]

Stresses given by relatively simple equations in the strength of materials for structures or machine members are based on the assumed continuity of the elastic medium. However, the presence of discontinuity destroys the assumed regularity of stress distribution in a member and a sudden increase in stresses occurs in the neighborhood of the discontinuity. In developing machines, it is impossible to avoid abrupt changes in cross-sections, holes, notches, shoulders, etc. Abrupt changes in cross-section also occur at the roots of gear teeth and threads of bolts. Some examples are shown in Figure 9.1.

Any such discontinuity acts as a stress raiser. Ideally, discontinuity in materials such as non-metallic inclusions in metals, casting defects, residual stresses from welding may also act as stress raisers. In this chapter, however, we shall consider only the geometric discontinuity that arises from design considerations of structures or machine parts.

Many theoretical methods and experimental techniques have been developed to determine stress concentrations in different structural and mechanical systems. In order to understand the concept, we shall begin with a plate with a centrally located hole. The plate is subjected to uniformly distributed tensile loading at the ends, as shown in Figure 9.2.

Introduction

All metals and alloys exhibit a reduction in electrical resistance as they cool. As the temperature drops, atoms’ thermal vibrations become less intense, and conduction electrons scatter less frequently. The resistivity should decrease toward zero as the temperature approaches zero Kelvin for a perfect pure metal, where the only thing standing in the way of an electron's travel is the thermal vibrations of the lattice. This zero resistance, which a hypothetical perfect specimen would acquire if it could be cooled to absolute zero, is the phenomenon of superconductivity. Any real specimen of metal cannot be perfectly pure and will contain some impurities. As a result, in addition to being scattered by the thermal vibrations of the lattice atoms, the electrons are also dispersed by impurities, and this impurity scattering is largely temperature independent. As a result, at the lowest temperature, there will be some residual resistance. The residual resistivity of a metal increases with the degree of impurity.

The phenomenon of superconductivity was first discovered by Dutch physicist H. Kamerling Onnes of Leiden University in 1911 during the investigation of the variation of electrical resistance of mercury in the newly available range of low temperatures, in the neighborhood of temperature of liquid helium (or 4.2 K). He observed that the resistance of mercury suddenly falls from 0.08 ohm at about 4 K to less than 3 × 10−6 ohm over a very small temperature of 0.01 K.