The Facts

On 7 January, United States military forces, supported by British forces, intercepted the oil tanker originally known as the Bella 1, then renamed the Marinera, in the Atlantic Ocean south of Iceland. The ship was sailed towards the UK, arrived in the Moray Firth on 13 January and anchored there in UK territorial waters. It remained there for more than two weeks, the UK Government having agreed that the Bella 1 could enter UK territorial waters as it was in need of repair. Subsequently, the captain and first officer were removed from UK jurisdiction by the US Coastguard to face criminal charges in the United States. The UK Government agreed to a request from the US Government to provide support for repatriation of the remaining 26 members of the Bella 1 crew who had not been arrested (none of whom were UK nationals) and plans were made for the crew members to be sent to countries of their choice.

The wife of the captain brought proceedings for judicial review in the Court of Session and on 26 January Lord Young granted an interim interdict (the Scottish equivalent of an injunction) barring the UK and Scottish governments, or anyone acting on their behalf, from removing the captain and the crew of the Marinera until the court could further consider the case. However, he refused to grant an interdict against the US Government. On the following day, 27 January, the court was told that the US Department of Justice had emailed Scotland’s prosecution service at 03:04 to confirm that the captain and first officer had been taken off the Marinera and placed on to the US Coast Guard vessel Munro. The Solicitor General asked the court to recall the interim interdict on the basis that the captain and first officer were no longer in the territorial jurisdiction of the court. Lord Young agreed to lift the interdict.

Although there appears to have been a mutually satisfactory resolution of matters for the US and UK governments, important legal questions with implications for the future have been left unanswered. Moreover, what happened in this case may not be an isolated incident and the UK may have to address these legal questions again.  This blog attempts to answer some of those questions.

Although it is not possible to neatly separate the international and domestic law issues, for ease of exposition, we address the international law issues first and then the domestic law issues before briefly addressing the issue of constitutional accountability and making some concluding remarks.

The International Law Issues

1. Was the seizure of the Bella 1 lawful?

The principal legal justification for seizing the ship given by the US Government was that it was in breach of US sanctions imposing a blockade on trade with Venezuela and was also involved in Iranian oil exports. On 7 January 2026, US Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that the ship was the subject of a seizure warrant issued by a US federal court in the District of Columbia, that the crew had evaded the US Coast Guard, and that they would face criminal charges. It is important to note that the sanctions were unilaterally imposed by the US; the seizure was not authorised by United Nations sanctions, nor were the actions of the vessel covered by UK sanctions. This justification was, therefore, based on US law.   The imposition of a blockade on Venezuela has also been condemned by UN experts and international lawyers: there is no right to enforce unilateral sanctions through an armed blockade.

It has also been suggested that the US might be able to justify boarding the vessel under Article 92 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as it was a stateless vessel. Russia stated that the ship had been granted temporary registration as a Russian ship on 24 December 2025 but the US did not accept this as a genuine registration. Some international lawyers have argued that this might be an adequate justification but the balance of opinion appears to be that it is not a convincing argument on the facts of the case. If this supposed justification cannot be made to stand up, then the US has broken the prohibition on the use force contained in the UN Charter and the UK has acted unlawfully by providing logistical and military support for the US action.

The position of the UK and Scottish Governments

The UK Government has not set out in detail its position on the legality of the seizure in international law. The Defence Secretary in his statement to the House of Commons on 7 January said that the UK had supported the US action to achieve three objectives:

First, to enforce counter-Iran sanctions.

Second, to tackle the global security threat posed by expanding nefarious maritime activity.

And third, to reinforce British homeland defence and security in this era of rising threat.

He also said that “A stateless vessel may be lawfully interdicted and subjected to the law of the interdicting State.” Thus,  apparently both endorsing the argument that Article 92 of UNCLOS might have provided a legal basis for the measure and confirming that the primary justification was the extra-territorial enforcement of unilateral US sanctions. In her statement to the House of Commons on 13 January, the Foreign Secretary, in referring to the UK’s support for the seizure of Bella 1, used words which were not entirely clear but might have been read as saying that the action was taken in support of international sanctions.

The Scottish Government’s position is set out in the statement to the Scottish Parliament by the First Minister on 27 January 2026.  He said:

            The Scottish Government has been clear that it supports that action. Where international sanctions are applied, the Government is a firm supporter of those sanctions being enforced. …

The Scottish Government also supports the assistance provided by the United Kingdom Government in the operation to take control of the Bella 1. I believe in international co-operation, in partnership and in countries standing together. That support is founded on a basic belief that, if we are to succeed in insisting on a rules-based international order that is based on international law, we must abide by those self-same rules-based processes and international laws.

So, the UK and the Scottish Governments seemed to agree that the seizure was lawful under international law. Their position seems eminently contestable.

2. Who had jurisdiction over the Bella 1 while it was in UK territorial waters? territorial waters?

Under UNCLOS, and reflective of customary international law, states are entitled to exercise both executive and judicial jurisdiction over ships within their territorial waters and their crews, subject only to limited exceptions.

One exception is that warships are immune from the exercise of jurisdiction by other states even when in those states’ territorial waters. There is also substantial immunity for foreign government ships operated for non-commercial purposes (UNCLOS, Art. 29-32) and more limited immunity for merchant ships and government ships operated for commercial purposes (UNCLOS, Art. 27-28). It is possible that the First Minister was relying on the warship exception  when he stated (see below) that the Scottish authorities had no legal basis for boarding the Bella 1. However, the Bella 1 is not a US warship nor is it a US ship being operated for commercial or non-commercial purposes and so the warship and related exceptions did not appear to apply. The UK was therefore entitled to exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the Bella 1, even if it could not have exercised such jurisdiction over US warships. If there are good legal arguments to support the view that the UK authorities lacked jurisdiction to take action affecting the Bella 1, they have not yet been publicly articulated by either the UK or Scottish Governments.

What follows from that is that UK public authorities did have grounds under international law for exercising a wide range of powers available in domestic law (including police powers) and there was, therefore, a range of actions that the UK Government could lawfully have taken while the ship remained in UK territorial waters. Also, members of the crew would have been entitled to invoke legal rights and remedies under domestic law. However, if any member of the crew had been transferred to a US warship that would have limited domestic jurisdiction as described above.

3. What rights did the crew have under international law?

The crew of the Bella 1 had numerous rights under international law, including under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963 (VCCR). We note in particular specific rights enumerated in Article 9 ICCPR include the rights not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention, if arrested or detained on a criminal charge to be brought promptly before a judge, and trial within a reasonable time or release. In addition, anyone who is deprived of their liberty is entitled to initiate court proceedings to determine the lawfulness of their detention and to have their release ordered if the detention is not lawful.  Similar rights are contained in the ECHR by which the UK (though not the US) is bound, in particular Article 5 (liberty and security) and Article 6 (fair trial). We note also the application of VCCR Article 36 as to consular access given legal effect in the UK law by the Consular Relations Act 1968.  Whilst issues of consular access normally arise bilaterally, the obligations of the receiving state apply equally where the national of the sending state is brought into the receiving state by a third state. In other words, although the members of the crew were brought to the UK by the US rather than their own states, the UK was obliged to implement the provisions of the VCCR with respect to the crew of the Bella 1.

It is difficult to make definitive statements about the extent to which the international law rights of the crew have been respected by the UK and Scottish Governments given the very limited information which those governments have provided about the detention. Although neither government has directly addressed the question, it seems more likely than not that the continued detention of the crew after the Bella 1 arrived in UK waters was involuntary and the rest of this blog proceeds on that assumption.

In his statement to the Scottish Parliament, the First Minister said:

It is important to make it clear that, while the Bella 1 was in Scottish waters, at no point were the UK or Scottish authorities in control of the vessel, and the Scottish authorities had no legal basis whatsoever for boarding the vessel at any time [emphasis added].

Information about the crew was provided by the US authorities and then to the Scottish Government either through local partners or through the UK Government. Reassurance was provided by the US Government that the individuals were in good health. Both the UK Government and the Crown Office made clear our expectation that all 28 individuals would disembark the vessel.

The UK Government has not made any statement about the treatment of the crew and no further details of the US reassurances have been provided. There is no mention of the US authorities saying anything about the international law rights of the crew and  no indication from any source that the crew have been afforded any of the due process rights guaranteed by Article 9 ICCPR and Article 5 ECHR.

As the Bella 1 was in UK waters, the UK was obliged to meet its obligations under both treaties to ensure that all individuals within its territory or otherwise subject to its jurisdiction had their rights respected and to ensure that any person whose rights were violated had an effective remedy. Given that, so far as we know, no representatives of the UK or Scottish Governments boarded the vessel, the only bases on which either Government could have been satisfied that the rights of the crew had been respected would be that they had received assurances from the US authorities to that effect or that the members of the crew had unequivocally waived their rights. There has been no indication that any such assurances were given; only their being in good health was mentioned in the First Minister’s statement. Even if  assurances had been given, it would have been a dereliction of duty simply to accept them without further inquiry. We think, therefore, that on the basis of the limited information made public, it is reasonable to conclude that there is a very real risk that the international law rights of the crew under ICCPR and ECHR have not been respected and that the UK has failed to fulfil its treaty obligations. We have similar concerns about consular access.

Domestic legal issues

The case also raises important issues of domestic law. We pay most attention to the relevant Scots law as the vessel’s anchorage was within Scottish territory, but similar points would have arisen under the laws of England and Wales or of Northern Ireland if the anchorage had been in waters within either of those jurisdictions (although, in Northern Ireland, it would be possible to make additional arguments based on EU law rights guaranteed under Article 2 of the Windsor Framework).

1. What were the grounds in domestic law for the detention of the crew?

The first question is what were the grounds in domestic law for the continued detention of the Bella 1 and its crew in UK territorial waters after the ship’s arrival there? The starting point is the presumption of liberty of the person; no person may be deprived of their liberty without good cause and the onus lies on the person depriving another of his liberty to show that they have lawful authority for that deprivation. The police have powers of arrest and detention for purposes of investigation and prosecution of crime, prevention of crime and the preservation of public order under the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016. At the risk of stating the obvious, US military forces cannot exercise those powers.

Powers of detention also exist under other legislation, for example the Immigration Act 1971 but such powers are generally conferred on UK or devolved public authorities. The only legislation that we are aware of conferring powers of arrest and detention on foreign military forces is the Visiting Force Act 1952. Under the 1952 Act, the military forces of certain countries can, while visiting the UK, exercise jurisdiction over their own personnel, but the 1952 Act confers no power to exercise jurisdiction over any other class of person. The only remaining possibility for authorising detention is that of citizen’s arrest but, for several reasons, that would not cover the situation of the crew of the Bella 1.

It does appear as if the captain and first officer may have been charged with offences under US law but that fact would not authorise their detention in UK waters, there being no basis in domestic law for it. As will be explained below, this is not a case of apprehension in order to secure extradition.

So, if our assumption that the crew were detained against their will is correct, then their lengthy detention in UK waters was illegal; there was simply no legal basis in Scots law for their detention by US forces either in legislation or common law.

2. Would extradition have been competent?

It appears that the US Government may at one point have been considering extradition proceedings. On 27 January, it was reported that the US had made a request for mutual legal assistance (on 16 January). This can be a precursor to seeking extradition. However, that request was withdrawn on 25 January and no extradition request was ever made and (as noted above) after the interim interdict granted by Lord Young was rescinded, the captain and first officer were handed over to the US Coast Guard, to be removed to the US.  

Had extradition been requested, it is unlikely that it would have been granted. Extradition from the UK is governed by the Extradition Act 2003 (EA) and one of the absolute requirements is that of ‘dual criminality.’  s. 137 of the that Act requires that, as well as being an offence under the law of the requesting state, the conduct in question would constitute an offence under the law of the relevant part of the UK if it happened in the UK. (For a recent example of the application of dual criminality, see El-Khouri v Government of the United States of America (El-Khouri) [2025] UKSC 3.) This requirement would not have been met because (as explained above) the alleged breach of unilateral US sanctions is not an offence in UK law. Other requirements of the Act, such as the requirement that extradition would be compatible with the person’s Convention rights, might also have presented obstacles to extradition (s. 87, EA).

Given that there was no extradition request, and that no other legal powers have been mentioned in this context, it is not clear what was the legal basis for allowing US forces to remove the captain and first officer from the UK.

3. What legal remedies might the crew have had for infringement of their rights under UK law?

Since we consider that there is a prima facie case that the rights of the crew under international and domestic law have been infringed we consider briefly in this section what legal remedies they might have been able to exercise. Space does not permit consideration of all the complexities involved but we raise them in light of current international events and the likelihood of further  seizures of ships which are brought within UK waters or carried out by the UK extra-territorially.

Liberation

This can be dealt with briefly. Whilst they were in custody on board the Bella 1, members of the crew ought to have been able to petition the Scottish Courts for liberation, there being no lawful basis for their detention. Had any of them been transferred to a US warship that would have been a different matter. Of course, the crew have been released but the point may arise in future if ships are seized by the UK or its allies.

Damages

We have suggested that the crew were unlawfully detained in breach of domestic law including their convention rights under Article 5, ECHR. There are at least two possible causes of action here. One is a common law claim in delict (roughly equivalent to tort in English law) for unlawful detention, although The State Immunity Act 1978 (SIA)  might be an obstacle to such a claim.  If a common law claim were to be rejected, it might be possible to claim damages for breach of Article 5 rights. In either case the claims would be against the US Government. Members of the crew could bring either or both of these claims within the relevant time limits.

As to the common law claim, under s. 5, SIA, a state is immune from the jurisdiction of the UK courts except in the limited circumstances provided for in the Act. One of the exceptions to immunity is proceedings in respect of death or personal injury caused by an act or omission in the UK. Could it be argued that any distress or anxiety caused by the detention was ‘personal injury’ within the meaning of s. 5 of the 1978 Act? The answer to that is not clear. In Shehabi v The Kingdom of Bahrain [2024] EWCA Civ 1158, the Court of Appeal held that psychiatric injury fell within the term ‘personal injury’ for purposes of SIA. However, the claimants would have to establish that any distress or anxiety caused by their detention had caused psychiatric injury.

As to the HRA claim, we would argue that this would be an appropriate case to give the ECHR ‘horizontal effect’ under section 6, HRA and that an award of damages would be necessary to afford just satisfaction for any infringement of Convention rights as required by s. 8, HRA. SIA seems less of an obstacle to the claim based on HRA as the court would be required to adopt a compatible interpretation of SIA by s. 3, HRA.

4. Is there scope for public interest litigation?

It is of course possible that neither the crew members of Bella 1, nor persons who find themselves in a similar situation in future would seek any legal remedy. Would there be any prospect of public interest litigation e.g., could a person or group seek judicial review of the actions or omissions of either the Scottish or UK Governments with a view to obtaining a declarator that their actions or failures to act were unlawful? That question raises many issues (including time limits) which cannot be discussed fully within this blog. We leave the question for another day.

Constitutional Accountability

Questions of constitutional accountability also arise here. There is of course a general principle that Ministers are accountable to the UK Parliament and the same principle applies to Scottish Miniters in relation to the Scottish Parliament. More specifically, para 1.6 of the Ministerial Code states that the Code “should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations, and to protect the integrity of public life.” Paragraph 1.3 of the Scottish Ministerial Code is to the same effect.

It may reasonably be doubted whether the codes have been followed in the matter of the Bella 1. There are doubts about the legality of the seizure of the vessel which the UK supported. There is also a prima facie case that the individual rights both in domestic and international law of the members of the crew have been infringed. There has been no indication that either UK or Scottish Ministers have taken any steps to ensure that the rights of the crew members have been respected. In fact, the legal content of the statements made by UK Ministers and Scottish Ministers has been extremely sparse. These statements fall far short of a clear statement of the legal basis both for the actions and apparent failures to act of the UK and Scottish Governments in relation to the Bella 1 in circumstances which cry out for explanation. Therefore, we think that there has been a failure of accountability on the part of both UK and Scottish Ministers. But the fault is not theirs alone. Elected representatives have failed sufficiently to press the UK and Scottish Governments to justify their actions based on applicable law.

Concluding remarks

The legal issues raised in this blog are both timely and critical. Timely because the current war in the Arabian Gulf along with other international escalations suggest that we may see more ships being seized in the near future. Critical because they relate to issues of fundamental rights and basic guarantees of  law, both domestic and international. It is dispiriting to see a UK Government, which has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to the international rules-based order,  fail to address obvious questions raised by US unilateral action. It is equally distressing to observe the apparent lack of interest of both the UK and Scottish Governments in enforcing domestic laws that guarantee individual rights and that are the foundation of constitutional order. Add to this the supine response of elected representatives and this amounts to a fundamental failure of democratic institutions of accountability who seem content to have allowed the creation of a legal ‘black hole’ in the UK despite the legacy of the law-free zones created during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their failures to uphold the law in the case of the Bella 1 may come back to haunt them.

Tom Mullen is a Professor of Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law.

Charlie Peevers is Professor of International Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law.

(Suggested citation: T. Mullen and C. Peevers, ‘A Legal Black Hole in UK Waters? The Case of the MV Bella 1’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (19th March 2026) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))