POLICY AND PRACTICE REVIEWS article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Pollution
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1687708
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Marine Environmental Protection: Challenges, Solutions and Perspectives Volume IIView all 43 articles
Legal Issues on China's Maritime Energy Corridor Security from the Perspective of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Provisionally accepted
- 1China University of Petroleum East China, Qingdao, China
- 2Southeast University, Nanjing, China
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The sanctions and embargoes resulting from the Russia-Ukraine conflict have triggered non-traditional risks, presenting significant challenges to international cooperation. Given the escalating situation concerning China's sustainable maritime energy transport corridors, the establishment of a security governance mechanism for these corridors is urgently needed. However, upon examining and analyzing the legal foundation of China's sustainable maritime energy transport corridors, it becomes evident that several issues persist. These include the limited effectiveness of conventions related to maritime energy transport corridors, the absence of cohesive security governance efforts among different entities, and inadequate coordination mechanisms. These challenges hinder traditional security governance mechanisms from effectively addressing the security issues surrounding energy corridors in the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. To address this, China should institute a security governance mechanism for maritime energy transport corridors by promoting the objectives of fostering an energy community with a shared future, adhering to a comprehensive approach to national security, and upholding the principle of risk prevention. Specifically, this entails the need to develop specialized conventions for maritime energy transport, enhance multilateral security cooperation agreements among states along these routes, and establish an international legal framework to safeguard maritime energy corridors. Furthermore, a diverse cooperation network should be established among coastal states hosting energy corridors and international organizations under the guidance of the United Nations. Additionally, a cooperation mechanism and a varied dispute prevention and resolution system should be instituted to pave the way for the legal protection of sustainable maritime energy corridor security.
Keywords: Russia-Ukraine conflict1, maritime energy corridor security2, principle of risk prevention3, energy community with a shared future4, holistic approach to national security5
Received: 18 Aug 2025; Accepted: 09 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Leng, Li, Ma and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Meng Li, China University of Petroleum East China, Qingdao, China
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