As global attention increasingly shifts to the oceans for discussions or solutions for climate, trade, or conservation, the people who live and work at sea remain largely unseen.
Human rights do not stop at the shoreline. Yet for people who live, work, travel, or find themselves in distress at sea, securing those rights can become significantly harder.
Seafarers and fishers can face dangerous or exploitative working conditions. People intercepted at sea may be detained without clear legal safeguards. Passengers, scientists, offshore workers, and migrants can struggle to access medical assistance, or establish who is responsible for their safety. Distance and isolation make abuses harder to detect, while overlapping jurisdictions can make accountability difficult to secure. These abuses often go unnoticed and unpunished, also due to the vastness and isolation of the maritime environment.

These challenges sit at the heart of the World Maritime Day theme, “From Policy to Practice: Powering Maritime Excellence”: how to translate international rules into national legislation, effective enforcement and better day-to-day practice across the maritime sector.
The BlueRights COST Action is contributing to this effort by examining how the rights to life, liberty and health can be protected more effectively for all people at sea, regardless of their status.
“Human rights apply everywhere, including at sea. Yet fragmented rules, uncertain responsibilities and limited enforcement can leave the people who live, work, or travel there without effective protection. The BlueRights COST Action is bringing together expertise from across Europe and beyond to help close the gap between rights on paper and rights in practice.” Professor Anna Petrig, Chair of the BlueRights COST Action and Professor of International and Public Law at the University of Basel.

When legal protection becomes fragmented
A substantial body of international law applies at sea. However, the relevant rules are spread across several fields, including the law of the sea, international human rights law, maritime labour law and, in some circumstances, refugee law and international humanitarian law.
What is more, different states, employers and other public and private actors may exercise authority over the same person: the state where a vessel is registered, the state controlling the surrounding waters, and the state conducting an interception or rescue operation may all have a role. Establishing who is responsible for protecting an individual at sea, and how that responsibility can be enforced, is therefore far from straightforward.
There is no single international convention bringing together the human rights protections that apply specifically at sea. BlueRights is addressing this fragmentation by asking two key questions:

• What do the rights to life, liberty and health require in the maritime context?
• Who is responsible for safeguarding them?

A network built around three fundamental rights – The BlueRights COST Action

BlueRights, Life, liberty and health: ensuring universal protection of human rights at sea, brings together more than 200 academics, practitioners and stakeholders from different disciplines and sectors across Europe and beyond. Through this international network, participants can compare how rights are understood and implemented in different countries, identify inconsistencies and develop proposals for stronger and more universal protection.

The Action’s work is organised in three Working Groups.
Together, the Working Groups are mapping the relevant legal frameworks, identifying gaps and inconsistencies, and examining why existing protections are not always implemented effectively. The objective is to clarify the responsibilities of states, companies, and other actors and to develop practical, policy-relevant proposals for strengthening protection and accountability.

"At sea, two bodies of law often fail to see one another clearly. The law of the sea has traditionally paid too little attention to human rights, while human rights law has not always recognised the realities of life and work at sea. BlueRights brings these perspectives together so that protection can become clearer and more effective,” adds Professor Anna Petrig, Chair of the BlueRights COST Action and Professor of International and Public Law at the University of Basel.

From shared research to practical action

The BlueRights network is already turning this collaboration into research, exchange, and capacity-building.
In March 2026, the Action organised the International Conference on the Protection of Health at Sea in Budva, Montenegro. Experts and stakeholders from 39 countries examined challenges affecting the right to health in maritime and coastal settings, from working and living conditions to access to healthcare and protection during emergencies. The resulting book of abstracts brings together multidisciplinary perspectives on these issues. Further conferences focusing on the rights to life and liberty are planned for 2027

In May 2026, BlueRights joined forces with the IMO International Maritime Law Institute in Malta to deliver its first Training School, Understanding Contemporary Challenges in Protecting the Right to Life at Sea. Over two days, participants examined search and rescue, the use of force, and risks to life at work, before applying their knowledge to practical scenarios based on real-world challenges.
The Training School brought together early career researchers and innovators with experts working in academia, legal practice, coastguards, navies and government departments. This combination of research and operational experience reflects the wider purpose of a COST Action: creating connections across countries, disciplines and career stages so that knowledge can travel beyond institutional and professional boundaries.

Bringing people at sea into view

Moving from policy to practice requires more than the adoption of international rules. It also requires a clear understanding of how those rules interact, who must act, and what prevents people from obtaining protection or redress.
By building a shared body of knowledge around life, liberty and health, BlueRights aims to make the experiences of people at sea more visible and support governments, industry and civil society in strengthening their protection.
Because universality should mean exactly that: human rights for everyone, wherever they are.

Additional Information

View the Action website
View the network website: https://bluerights.eu/
World Maritime Day
Follow BlueRights on social media: LinkedIn & BlueSky