In the last few years, it has been recognized more and more that human rights also play a role in the maritime sector. Human rights violations at sea are easy to overlook because they happen largely out of sight of most of society and they are based often on the structural power imbalances between seafarers or coastal residents and ship operators or far-away flag states. This article reveals some of the relationships between different actors and the potential for human rights violations in the maritime context. The article highlights the role and limitations of international law in this context. It will also be shown how different state and non-state actors, including consumers, can contribute to strengthening the protection of human rights at sea.

Today we are witnessing a fundamental shift in Public International Law (PIL) in which the number of actors increases dramatically and in which communication means power. The matrix of PIL is undergoing a major change. This change is not abrupt but has to be seen in the context of the shift away from the Westphalian model of PIL since 1945. Also, globalization is not a new phenomenon, although the current era of globalization, which was made possible due to the fall of the iron curtain and recent technological developments, raises the question how to describe the emerging international legal community in terms of international legal theory. As the importance of the role of the state as an actor of international law is reduced (albeit not to a degree that the state would lose its de facto primacy among the subjects of international law), other actors are gaining ground, in particular international organizations, transnational corporations, NGOs and individuals. Today the latter not only have rights under Public International Law but are also involved in the creation of new rules of international law.

It is often feared that globalization is an equalizer in that it dissolves the differences between cultures, including legal cultures. At the same time we can see a counter-movement which places more emphasis on culturally or religiously based rules. A key example of this is the emergence of Islamic Finance. This trend has not only been fueled by the renewed interest in Islam since 9/11, but also due to the shortcomings of traditional financial concepts which have been highlighted dramatically in the global financial crisis. While originating in the Middle East, interest in Islamic finance is now so widespread that seminars on Islamic finance in Western financial centers are fully booked long in advance. International law firms open more and more new offices in the Middle East and, while not necessarily having entered the mainstream, in a sense Islamic finance has gained its place in the world of finance and has therefore become a concern not only for bankers but also for lawyers advising clients on financial services. In this presentation, we will first look at the Quranic sources for the need for Islamic finance before seeing how Islamic finance operates and which financial instruments have been developed under sharia law. We will see how sharia rules impact the financial industry and how they have gained a role among financial products offered around the world before turning our attention to the challenge posed by these financial instruments to regulators unfamiliar with Islamic law. We will look at how religious freedom limits regulatory possibilities. At the center of the investigation, though, will be the question as to whether Islamic finance products live up to the promises associated with them and which consequences this has for regulators, in particular those in Non-Muslim countries.