Although the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) aims to regulate maritime safety in general, it omits terrorism at sea, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, illegal immigration, intelligence gathering and vessel traffic monitoring. The Convention excludes intelligence exchange on illegal activities at sea such as piracy, terrorism, human and narcotics trafficking, illegal fishing and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. UNCLOS does however operate as a framework convention since it provides infrastructure upon which UN agencies may take specific measures to address particular problems. For instance, UNCLOS serves as foundation for 80 legal documents in the fields of environmental protection and safety management.

As maritime safety issues are of common interest, multinational cooperation is inevitable. Common good, the author argues, should take precedence over particular interests of nations.