Episode 287: Forging Solutions for Verifiable Maritime Intelligence to Combat Shadow Fleets with Tuana Yazici and Steven Adler

Today, Dominic Bowen hosts Tuana Yazici and Steven Adler on The International Risk Podcast to examine the challenge of verifiable maritime intelligence in an era of shadow fleets, uneven enforcement, and rapidly advancing remote sensing technologies.

They discuss how traditional surveillance struggles to track unregistered or deliberately obscured vessels, and how satellite imagery, SAR, radiofrequency detection, and AIS data can be combined to identify evasive behaviour at sea. Yet, evidence from these technologies remains inconsistently admissible in legal or regulatory settings. The conversation highlights both the potential and limits of space-enabled monitoring, the legal uncertainties of geospatial evidence, and the institutional gaps that hinder coordinated enforcement against sanctions evasion and illicit trade.

The guests also explore technical vulnerabilities in satellite sensing, standards for reliability and authenticity, and the need for frameworks integrating ocean-domain intelligence, space-derived data, and clear legal pathways for verification. They consider incentives, jurisdictional constraints, and governance barriers shaping responses to shadow fleets, reflecting on what credible, scalable maritime intelligence will require in the years ahead.

Tuana is the Founder, Chair and CEO of Tuana Group, its subsidiaries AeroAI Voyages and AeroAI DesignLab, and the nonprofit AeroAI Global Solutions, an observer organisation to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). Across these entities, she works at the intersection of space technologies, artificial intelligence and governance, developing applied solutions that use advanced sensing and AI systems to improve global living conditions.

Steven is the former Chief Data Strategist at IBM Watson and founder of the Ocean Data Alliance. He is a leading voice in open data governance, ocean information policy, and the development of trusted, interoperable data systems for governments, multilateral bodies, and industry, focusing on infrastructures needed for effective maritime oversight.

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners and senior decision-makers who shape how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you are a board member, policymaker or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis and real-world stories that matter.

Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and one of Europe’s leading experts on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at a major risk consulting firm, he advises CEOs, boards and senior executives on preparing for uncertainty and acting with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies and supporting Europe’s business leaders. Dominic is trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure and ability to turn volatility into strategic advantage. He equips leaders with the insight and confidence needed to navigate disruption and deliver long-term resilience.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Tuana: I was, in my publications, always vouching for an independent body to be created. That independent body was called International Space AI Regulatory Authority, which is ISARA. Within ISARA I recommended that a dedicated satellite evidence standards and verification committee could be made.

[00:00:16] Tuana: So that we actually look at the evidence and review the intelligence and audit the methodologies and ensure privacy and ethical compliance and produce verification reports, so that it can actually be used as evidence.

[00:00:29] Steven: From my perspective, having more NGOs and more organisations looking at this data provides the opportunity to put more pressure on governments to take this issue seriously. More actors who might get involved and say, yes, we have a problem in the world. We have this international illicit cargo floating around thousands of ships.

[00:00:47] Steven: And it is damaging human rights, and it is damaging our planet. We ought to do something about it.

[00:01:00] Dominic: Hi, I am Dominic Bowen and welcome back. Over the last 20 years, I have been really blessed to work with different government institutions, private actors and corporate enterprises, and I have done so in some of the most complex environments, and what we are doing today and what we are going to explore today is something I am really excited about speaking about.

[00:01:16] Dominic: And this is the really urgent issue, and it is at the intersection of surveillance, law, and even enforcement of laws as well. And it is this untraceable maritime operations and the systems that we need to monitor them. And we are talking about shadow fleets, and these have been in the news a lot over the last few months.

[00:01:33] Dominic: They are vessels that obscure their identity. They might disable different devices and tracking devices, sometimes known as AIS, or they might operate under flags of convenience. And they are becoming critical actors in illicit trade. They are becoming essential actors in circumventing sanctions, often responsible for environmental harm.

[00:01:52] Dominic: Despite rapid advances around the world in surveillance technologies, enforcement still remains uneven, and the standards for interpreting and acting on satellite derived data remains fragmented. So to help us understand and explore what is trusted, what is verifiable maritime intelligence, and how do we bring this together, we are joined by two great guests today.

[00:02:10] Dominic: Our first guest is Tuana Yazici, and she is the founder and CEO of Tuana Group. She also chairs the International Institute of Space Law's Working Group on Legal Aspects of AI and Space, and she recently completed her JD at the University of Miami School of Law. She is also the author of Standardizing Space Technologies as Admissible Evidence, and has published widely on AI regulation, remote sensing and global governance.

[00:02:35] Dominic: And we are also joined by Steven Adler. He is the former Chief Data Scientist at IBM and the founder of Ocean Data Alliance. He pioneered the IBM Data Governance Council and has advised the US Commerce Department and numerous governments on building transparent interoperable data systems.

[00:02:53] Dominic: And he is a leading advocate for using open, trusted ocean-data infrastructure to support enforcement, to support innovation, and most importantly, sustainability. So Tuana and Steven, welcome to The International Risk Podcast.

[00:03:06] Dominic: Satellite based data. It is obviously central to maritime domain awareness and the evidentiary challenges towards following up on what we are seeing, and perhaps what we are not seeing, on the oceans can be quite steep. Now, one of our guests on the podcast was exploring and helping us unpack that.

[00:03:22] Dominic: Navies are the largest users of space systems and remote sensing. And this is increasingly relied on not just to guide shipping, but also of course missiles and submarine systems. So Steven, I wonder if you can help us understand, to start with, why is it so difficult to turn satellite and all these increasingly AI enhanced surveillance systems into credible and verifiable maritime intelligence, and perhaps we need to understand why does this matter. What is the important point that we need to understand today?

[00:03:51] Steven: First of all, the ocean is blue, and it is hard often to geolocate anything you might be taking a picture of. Secondly, satellites travel at about 17,000 miles an hour around the earth, and they only have a brief period of time in which they can record images, and many satellites turn their cameras off over the ocean to recharge their batteries.

[00:04:07] Steven: So the amount of attention that is being paid on imaging the ocean with satellites today is still relatively small compared to the amount of attention that is being paid to imaging land, where most of the attention, where most of the satellite bandwidth is going towards, if it is not infrared or radar, is towards shoreline coastal areas. That area is imaged well because it is easy to geolocate where that is, because it is close to land, because they use location on land to identify where something is. That is one.

[00:04:23] Steven: So previously, aside from organisations like Global Fishing Watch, which built AI programs specifically to monitor where fishing boats were, there has not really been a huge amount of attention, at least to my knowledge, on imaging large parts of the ocean.

[00:04:48] Steven: For many purposes that is changing slowly today, and we can see more bandwidth being applied to it, but still we have a problem that there is not a lot of surveillance activity over the ocean specifically.

[00:04:59] Steven: Some of the systems that could be used for imaging the ocean are things like, from Planet Labs. They have a huge fleet of low Earth orbit satellites. Or Maxar, which have a fairly small number of very sophisticated, large satellites that monitor the earth and take pictures these days.

[00:05:13] Steven: There are lots of companies that are providing imagery, but again, a lot of it is driven by the interest of imagery on land or in coastal regions. And a lot of the ships that you are talking about, they leave coastal regions, and they go into the open ocean, and they are not monitored.

[00:05:30] Steven: Secondly, if you take a picture of a ship from space, that is great, but you do not really know what the ship is doing. You need to know, okay, you need to have multiple pictures of that ship from multiple angles. You need to know where the ship is before you can take a picture of it. So you need to be tipped off with some terrestrial intelligence first, to know, oh, this ghost fleet is here. Let us image there. Let us see if we can find it.

[00:05:48] Steven: And then if you can find it, you have to know, well, where did it come from, where is it going. So it is not enough to image with satellites. You have to combine that imagery with other types of information like financial information. Where did it pick up its cargo. What is it using for payments to supply the crew. Where did the crew come from.

[00:06:03] Steven: You know, lots of information has to be co-located in order for an image of a ship at sea to make sense. It is not just the content, it is the context as well.

[00:06:13] Dominic: Thanks for explaining that, Steven. And if we look at the shadow fleet and what they are, if we just look at the last couple of years, we know that Russia has expanded its shadow fleet to over 1,100 vessels. And that is about four hundred and thirty, four hundred forty of those, I believe, are oil transporting tankers as well.

[00:06:29] Dominic: And they operate under ownership that can be quite difficult to tie down in the UAE, Hong Kong, Seychelles, using flags of convenience like Panama, Liberia or Gabon. And I understand that part of the challenge is the legal architecture surrounding this, so I wonder if, Tuana, you can help us understand what are the challenges in understanding these shadow fleets and why cannot we use more of the remote sensing data to bring these ships and their owners to court?

[00:06:55] Tuana: So first of all, Steven explained it very well in terms of the technical challenges. And so let me dive into the legal challenges a little bit, and I am also going to dive into the technical part as well that we deal with. So let us take a step back. When talking about satellite and AI derived intelligence, such as the case of shadow fleets, we have to remember that we are moving in a relatively uncharted legal territory. So courts are used to dealing with photographs or eyewitness testimony or traditional forensic evidence, but evidentiary status of satellite imagery and AI enhanced analysis is far less settled. And the challenge is to show that these technologies can meet the same reliability and authenticity standards that apply to any other form of evidence.

[00:07:41] Tuana: So that is where the challenge comes from. Let us look at US for a second. So their constitutional backdrop illustrates how uncertain the law remains. For example, Supreme Court cases like Ciraolo and Dow Chemical, they held that aerial observations from lawful vantage points and public air spaces were permissible. But then you look at Kyllo, another Supreme Court case, and it shows that they were using thermal imaging to see inside of a house, and that was deemed a search. Then you look at another Supreme Court case like Jones, where there is GPS tracking, and that is also relevant for satellite imagery as well with the GPS systems. And you look at Carpenter, and these all show that detailed surveillance, when it is long term, it implicates the Fourth Amendment rights, right.

[00:08:30] Tuana: But then you look at other cases that are like appellate court cases, and they actually accepted autogenerated coordinates as non hearsay, but only when it was authenticated by a witness or a technician. So when it is used solely as primary evidence, that is still not really utilised in the US court systems. But when it is secondary evidence and supporting evidence, especially when it is corroborated by other types of evidence, then they are more likely to lean towards that. So that is where we are basically at with the US cases.

[00:08:55] Tuana: Now internationally, courts in the UK and European human rights tribunals have accepted satellite data to prove, for example, environmental violations and cross border attacks. So there is growing precedent, but there is not by any means any sort of uniformity. Now, beyond cost questions, privacy issues, there is also huge technical and procedural vulnerabilities, which then makes it harder to vouch for these technologies at the moment without countering some of these vulnerabilities.

[00:09:23] Tuana: So satellite sensors can be affected by this thing called quantum noise. This is random fluctuations in measurements at the quantum level that creates error in sensitive detectors. And by this thing called photon scattering, this is where signals bend or disperse as they pass through the atmosphere, which then reduces clarity and precision.

[00:09:42] Tuana: And there are calibration errors and poor time synchronisation between satellites and ground stations. That also, this is a huge issue, compromises geolocation precision like with GPS. But at the same time, let us leave this for a second, the technical issues. There is also human issues, because these can be deliberately manipulated, or analytic models can be tweaked to fit the needs of a party, for example, which can raise concerns about obviously intentional and unintentional distortion.

[00:10:09] Tuana: So these all obviously create huge issues with the Federal Rules of Evidence and all that must be addressed through authentication. So you know, there are some scholarships out there in the world, some academics that suggest, for example, that certain companies should be able to give this sort of satellite data pro bono to the government so they can use this in their investigations. But then that also brings up a huge issue. Ask any single company in the world, because that would then hinder their ability to negotiate future government contracts. Because if they are doing this pro bono, that would also intrude on their interrogation power, negotiation power for the next upcoming contracts.

[00:10:47] Tuana: So I will get into my recommendations later. But these are some of the top issues that we face at the moment, both legal, technical and human.

[00:10:55] Dominic: Thanks for explaining that. And Steven, as Tuana mentioned, you know shadow fleets are routinely disabling their Automatic Identification Systems, the AIS, to avoid detection. We know that is really common in places like the Kerch Strait and the Baltic and the Black Sea. And often these vessels are also moving and swapping their cargoes at sea, so not even doing it on land based ports, they are doing it at sea. And we know that we have seen the blending of oil originating of Russia, for example, with other oil to mask and obscure the source.

[00:11:24] Dominic: And some ships are even faking their GPS locations. So I am wondering, Steven, how do we actually get past that? How do we move from this fragmented signals, whether it is GPS or AIS, to some sort of a more coordinated mechanism where we actually understand the maritime environment, we have the right intelligence so that governments and law enforcement actors can actually take appropriate action.

[00:11:45] Steven: That is a really good question. I think it depends on how much coordination nations want to have with each other. You know, I think the basis of your question is that shadow fleets are only used by, we might call rogue states, but that is a big presumption that Europeans, for example, are not participating in aspects of shadow fleets.

[00:12:05] Steven: To make money off of illicit goods from foreign countries, or that people are not using it to avoid tariffs by shipping things to third countries that have lower tariff rates. Like I am sure we can see, for example, with the hodgepodge of tariff rates that the United States has created, that this is now going to be port arbitrage about where do we ship things to first so they can be transshipped someplace else, or maybe we swap them in the middle of the ocean.

[00:12:29] Steven: Some nations probably are monitoring these things. Some nations probably have intelligence services that can monitor the stuff. Maybe private entities will also step in to provide services, although that might be dangerous in this kind of a world to do. The other question is the jurisdiction.

[00:12:44] Steven: Where do you apply the law. If you are in the open seas, there is no law. Anything can happen. That is why people change cargo in the open seas, because there is no law that applies. Anything, you know, you can kill people in the open seas. Nothing, nothing matters. So then where do you bring the charges against the, if you use the intelligence to discover a shadow ship, which court will apply.

[00:13:07] Steven: It probably will not be the United States. Maybe it will be New Caledonia, Tahiti, Nauru. And will those courts have the sophistication to understand the evidence that is being brought. If it is being brought with satellite surveillance. Will they have the infrastructure to handle the caseload.

[00:13:23] Steven: If you just look at enforcement actions against maritime violations in general, in the EU and in the United States, you know, even under existing laws like the London Convention on international dumping, the number of cases that are brought, enforcement actions, are maybe two a year. So it is jurisdictional, it is caseload, it is who is monitoring all this information, who is bringing it all together.

[00:13:46] Steven: These are things that are going to have to be resolved by nations. You know, one would like to see somebody in the middle. Maybe United Nations would step up, but they probably lack the technical and funding capacity to do this. Maybe Tuana has some ideas about what kind of centralised organisation could find all this information and use it intelligently and understand which courts of law could actually apply it.

[00:14:08] Tuana: I just want to also bring it back to something very important that Steven brought up, which is before getting into the centralised approach of this, it is important to see how do we combine these sorts of technologies to first ensure that it can be used as evidence first.

[00:14:24] Tuana: And then the next step would be, so how do we even bring this to court. And that is a key component to what Steven brought up, which is that you cannot just use satellite imagery, take a picture and call it a day. That does not save anything. You have to be able to combine it with different sorts of technologies.

[00:14:40] Tuana: And I do want to take a second here to describe a few of these technologies because we do this in our nonprofit, so I want to quickly go over this. The Automatic Identification System, the AIS data, is a digital transporter. So vessels broadcast their identity, position, course, speed to nearby ships and shore stations, and then they turn it off when they want to falsify it.

[00:15:02] Tuana: And then radio frequency data, which is also obtained from satellite data. That steps in here because even if AIS is switched off, vessels still emit radio signals through their communication equipment. And these can be geo-located through radiofrequency data. And I will give you an example of a company that does this, which is Hawkeye 360.

[00:15:20] Tuana: And then synthetic aperture radar or SAR data. These provide imaging regardless of weather conditions. So it can be cloudy or night. You can still detect, take these images, and they can detect hulls, wakes, patterns of movement, and they can confirm a vessel is physically present even if it is dark on AIS. And you can also combine that with optical satellite imagery and AI for pattern recognition or to enhance these systems.

[00:15:47] Tuana: So just to give a quick example, our nonprofit AeroAI Global Solutions, we use space technologies and AI for global betterment. And one of our pilot initiatives, AeroAI Guardian, is focused on combating human trafficking and wildlife trafficking by using these space technologies and AI.

[00:16:05] Tuana: And while this is still in its early stages, we are building it on a foundation of strong partnership. So we partnered with the Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife, which was founded by Prince William, and they are partnered with a lot of different organisations. Interestingly enough, very similar to what Steven said about certain partnerships they have where they can actually get the financial data of certain criminals easier because they are partnered with those sorts of institutions.

[00:16:27] Tuana: So what happens is, let us walk through a scenario of vessel tracking, right. We use all these sorts of technologies as I explained it, but then as Steven said, where is the context of this. Yes, you have all this data. By the way, when you look at all this data as raw data, nothing makes sense to the human eye. So you have to be able to use AI and also cloud servicing to actually put all these technologies together to even have it make sense to a human being to see what is happening.

[00:16:50] Tuana: But then, yes, you have all this information. Then what. Where is the context of this. So that is where other partnerships come in.

[00:17:01] Tuana: We wanted to ensure that we are not left with a bunch of data and then we can actually do something with that data. So we wanted to include a government partnership, so whether it be Department of State, Homeland Security, where we would have a government contract where they actually provide us with certain information, like this is a hotspot where we need to locate so and so.

[00:17:20] Tuana: Then we actually use this sort of technology and actually have it help their investigations. But another thing that we would be able to do on our end is we have discussions with certain partners where, like Quantico, where they have this database of information regarding cartels and other sorts of criminal database, where then they can locate, okay, if this is a vessel, this is the syndicate that is on it. You know, they can make that correlation.

[00:17:45] Tuana: So then you would be able to send all of this data plus the context in a nice little package and give it for their investigations so that they can use it as evidence. So yes, there are a lot of NGOs currently that are using satellite data, and there are certain companies that are providing satellite data to these NGOs.

[00:18:03] Tuana: But what happens. They use it for their own programs. I mean still, they are doing great things. But another important part of it is it is not promoting the evidentiary aspect of that, and the uniformity of using this as evidence internationally. So I would urge all these NGOs and companies to also vouch for that, to push for that, because that is the next step to this.

[00:18:22] Tuana: We see that the technology can work. The next step is to actually bring it to courts, use it as evidence. So then to answer your question, Steven, about the international aspect of that, the centralisation, as you said, we look at UN, for example, or like the International Telecommunication Union, and they are all specialised in their own way. Even ICAO and the European Artificial Intelligence Board, and none of it quite fit into the technical needs and the procedures that are needed and the legal standardisation that is needed to actually enforce this sort of thing on an international level.

[00:18:57] Tuana: So that is why I was, my publications always vouching for an independent body to be created. That independent body was called International Space AI Regulatory Authority, which is ISARA. Within ISARA I recommended that a dedicated satellite evidence standards and verification committee could be made.

[00:19:14] Tuana: So that we actually look at the evidence and review the intelligence and audit the methodologies and ensure privacy and ethical compliance and produce verification reports so that it can actually be used as evidence. Because one way to, like Steven said, ensure that something is verifiable is to again look at other sorts of technologies, confirm from other sources that the GPS tracking, all that, is actually true.

[00:19:36] Tuana: So this is some of the recommendations that I had in my publication. So I just wanted to put that out there.

[00:19:44] Steven: I think it is really impressive. That is really great work.

[00:19:46] Tuana: Thank you very much.

[00:19:48] Dominic: And Tuana, I wonder, because I mentioned Russia and Russia's shadow fleet, but Iran and Venezuela have been operating shadow fleets for years and they have been specialising in similar sort of sanction evasion operations for oil and other goods. And these fleets typically involved ships with the similar structures, concealed ownership, often making unregistered stops at ports.

[00:20:06] Dominic: Many European ports. Steven, I am going to come back to you on that topic. Changing flags to bypass controls. So these jurisdictional challenges, they are not new. So I wonder if you can help us understand what are the challenges, what are the risks, what are the risks of not dealing with these shadow fleets, and what are the challenges of actually resolving this.

[00:20:25] Tuana: So, for example, look at Department of State. They have international investigations happening, right. So they look at investigations all over the world, they have investigations all over the world, and then, like you said, the issue is where do they then bring this. It could be in the US or, you know, where the flag state jurisdiction is, but like you said, they obviously have those loopholes where they switch the flag, et cetera, to escape that and make it ten times harder to bring them into a court.

[00:20:50] Tuana: But there are, you know, coastal state jurisdictions. There are all these little nuances with, like, if it is within twelve nautical miles of territorial waters, et cetera, or port state jurisdiction, or you can even bring it to the International Court of Justice, especially for crimes with, like, human trafficking or piracy or environmental crime.

[00:21:09] Tuana: So there are avenues, but they are complex, they are nuanced. There is not a clear cut explanation and steps that is easy to follow, which makes it more complicated. And it makes it harder for the investigators to put resources towards that because they have limited resources that states give them, right.

[00:21:29] Tuana: With these investigations, like look at Homeland Security and State, and in other countries as well. So they have limited resources, so there has to be very clear avenues that they take. Like let us say, you know, they found this vessel. What are the next steps. Which court did they bring it to. What sort of evidence is needed for that specific court.

[00:21:46] Tuana: So that is why one of my publications was specifically about, like, how do we, from A to Z, bring something from data to evidence to court. And I mapped that out in the US courts. But then internationally, again, I vouch for these sorts of organisations because of this issue.

[00:22:05] Tuana: There has to be a very specific organisation that deals with the legal aspects of it, works with the International Court of Justice, and is able to basically prep this evidence so that it can be the step before bringing it to International Court of Justice, so that the evidence is not disputed, the legitimacy of it.

[00:22:21] Tuana: So to answer your question, it is very complex at the moment. There is no uniform way of going about it. It requires immediate attention. And I say this in the nicest way possible, it is one of the most urgent issues of our day to really start to understand how these technologies work.

[00:22:38] Tuana: Because obviously law lags behind, right. With any sort of technology, it improves every second of every day and the laws lag behind and we are trying to catch up with the laws. But this is the moment where we really need to put certain things aside and internationally work for certain solutions to these issues.

[00:22:56] Steven: It is very complicated because there really are not any incentive structures for nations to apply these laws. There is not like a bounty you get for finding a ghost ship. There are not standards for evidentiary information. For example, a journalist cannot publish a story based upon one piece of input.

[00:23:14] Steven: You need to corroborate your facts and your sources. So you need to have at least three sources for a good story, right. So that means you have to have a satellite image. You probably need to have some sort of cargo record. You need to have some financial information. There has to be at least some terrestrial corroboration of what the satellite image is saying, and the court, you know, these criminals are smart.

[00:23:37] Steven: They know where to go. So you need to identify where are they going, where are they clustering, where are the pirate ports basically. And then somebody in the pirate port has to have a financial interest which overrides the ability to do the transaction. There has to be something in it for them because they have to fund the education of the courts and the lawyers to process this information.

[00:23:57] Steven: So what are they going to get out of it. Do they get to keep the cargo. Is there a bounty. If they have, if they find a rogue ship, they take the ship off the market, what happens to the crew. Are they really criminal or are they even allowed to leave the ship. Are they a slave crew.

[00:24:13] Steven: There are all these questions about who has the incentive to prosecute these ships and the country that is prosecuting, do they have their own ships. You know, are they really innocent in terms of this process. These are questions which we have not really focused on so far, and we are in a very dangerous world.

[00:24:29] Steven: We are in this world in which we have a major war in Europe and we do not know if it is going to spill over. We do not know if there are going to be more wars in the world. You know, the last 80 years have been a period of time in which there have not been a global war, but these days, these are all questions.

[00:24:43] Steven: Like right now we are on the cusp of being able to use a lot of information to discover things about human behaviour on our planet which we have never tracked before, and it is exciting and scary. I am really glad that people like Tona are working on this subject. We need to have a larger ecosystem of people who are focusing on this issue.

[00:25:00] Steven: From my perspective, having more NGOs and more organisations looking at this data provides the opportunity to put more pressure on governments to take this issue seriously. More actors who might get involved and say, yes, we have a problem in the world. We have this international illicit cargo floating around thousands of ships.

[00:25:18] Steven: And it is damaging human rights, and it is damaging our planet. We ought to do something about it. Let us do something about it. It is only through this grassroots effort that we begin to see enough focus on this topic. So I applaud this work that she is doing. I think it is really important.

[00:25:31] Tuana: Thank you, Steve.

[00:25:32] Tuana: Just one little thing that I would like to point out with the NGOs, especially when vouching for these sorts of technologies. Another thing to vouch for is for the government involvement in actually looking at the evidence that is found and to actually use in their investigations and to push for evidence to be used in courts, and I have had discussions with judges before about the sorts of evidentiary use, and they would ask me, how would we even go about that.

[00:25:52] Tuana: So that is the issue. It is like we, that has to be mapped out with the federal rules of evidence and also on an international level. Like from A to Z how do we map this out and ensure that it gets into court, and how do we standardise that.

[00:26:10] Tuana: So it is important to push for that so that it can actually be unified at some point because if it is not a standardised system, it is not going to do it justice. So we have to ensure that it is standardised both nationally and internationally.

[00:26:23] Steven: Dominic, may I ask for a question.

[00:26:24] Dominic: Of course.

[00:26:25] Steven: Tuana, you just finished law school, you just finished your bar. How much education, tech education, was there in law school? Were there any courses on satellite data or on data or IT, on tech law at all?

[00:26:37] Tuana: Oh, no. There was AI law, but it is very general.

[00:26:40] Tuana: Let us see what else.  Obviously, you have to take evidence as a course because that is asked on the bar, but it does not obviously talk about this sort of technologies. I do. I am the annoying one that brings it into class every now and then with any sort of case we talk about.

[00:26:54] Tuana: I try to bring in this sort of discussion as well to get people thinking about how would we go about bringing this into just using the current rules of evidence, right. And that is why I realised, wow, we really do not know. You know, not in the classroom, we do not know. When I talk with certain state attorneys or et cetera, it is still a question mark.

[00:27:12] Tuana: That is why I wanted to take the time to write that specific paper on how to standardise it. Like really look into the Supreme Court cases, appellate court cases, circuit court cases and see how can we do this and just explain it. Where we are at and give certain recommendations because there has to be a discussion that goes on amongst judges, among the Supreme Court to really finally give us answer to this question.

[00:27:35] Tuana: We are at that stage now with the technology. We have to have a clarification.

[00:27:39] Dominic: And Steven, earlier on you mentioned that enforcement and improvement of the current systems and using the data we have and improving data collection really depends on how much countries want to coordinate. And you talked about Europeans participating in shadow fleets and using port arbitrage to avoid tariffs.

[00:27:55] Dominic: We know that European crewing agencies have been documented in providing seafarers to shadow vessels. They are engaging in sanctions evasions. We know that some European shipping and logistics companies have been linked to opaque ownership structures and service provision to shadow fleets, including high level insurance and port facilitation. I wonder what data do we have. What do we actually know about this risk?

[00:28:18] Steven: We know human nature and it is universal for every continent that I have ever been to. And people seek self interest and, you know, they will take a left turn on a red light if no one is watching. That is just normal. So I do not know. I have no specific knowledge of Europeans doing anything.

[00:28:37] Steven: I just assume that if there is a substantial amount of money to be made and it can be made relatively easily, somebody will do it. And so it could be Europeans, it could be Americans, it could be Canadians. It could be in the Vatican. Who knows. You know, I just think it is a universal human nature.

[00:28:53] Steven: And especially since, for all the issues we raise today, the jurisdiction is a challenge. Lawyers are not being trained in satellite intelligence, and so they are not applying the law. No one is thinking about this. Some people might be thinking about it, intelligence agencies. They might be very grateful that lawyers have not figured it out yet.

[00:29:08] Steven: You know, there could be things that are happening in some parts of the world on this subject, but it is not comprehensive. And since it is not comprehensive, it means it is easy to get away with things that nobody is watching.

[00:29:19] Steven: Until nations perceive that it is in their interest to monitor maritime trade and enforce and pass laws in nations.

[00:29:29] Steven: I mean, we could have other countries passing maritime laws about ghost fleets. Ghost ships may not dock in our ports. You know, somebody could pass a law like that. And if there is a law like that and there are coast guards that are monitoring the coast for shadow fleets because there is a law and they have to enforce the law, then they may seek evidence.

[00:29:49] Steven: To impound ships that are violating the law. And you know, that could start. Nations that have the ability to enforce laws like that may start to enforce laws like that if they perceive it in their interest. And they can only perceive it in their interest if organisations like Tuana's make a noise about it.

[00:30:03] Tuana: So there are lawyers that also in the space realm do work on space related issues, but it is mostly not really about this. I have not seen this being discussed as much. But let us say for like space traffic management, which also affects, like, you know, space situational awareness with, you know, there is no centralised again system there.

[00:30:21] Tuana: So that is also something that they are trying to map out. So currently it is kind of like these are the issues that are mostly focused on in the space realm for space law. So that is why, like Steven said, there needs to be more focus on the interdisciplinary aspects of space law and humanitarian effort.

[00:30:39] Steven: So far, I think space is sort of like Antarctica. It is a place where everybody wants to be and no one wants any governance.

[00:30:45] Dominic: Yes. Thanks for explaining that, Tuana and Steven. Well, and thank you very much for coming on The International Risk Podcast today.

[00:30:53] Steven: Thanks for having us.

[00:30:54] Dominic: Well, that was great to have Tuana Yazici, the founder and CEO of the Tuana Group. She chairs the International Institute of Space Law's Working Group on legal aspects of AI and space.

[00:31:04] Dominic: And we are also joined by Steven Adler, the former Chief Data Strategist at IBM, and the founder of the Ocean Data Alliance. Today’s podcast was produced and coordinated by Katerina Mazzucchelli. I am Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening. We will speak again in the next couple of days.