Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.
Canada’s Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force are spending millions of dollars as they search for five foreign nationals whose submersible went missing in the North Atlantic Ocean. None of the costs for things such as fuel and wear-and-tear on equipment will ever be recovered, even if the men in the missing OceanGate Expeditions vessel are rescued alive.
It would be easy to take a cynical view of the effort put into rescuing wealthy people who deliberately placed themselves at risk. But Canada is doing the right thing.
Countries around the world have long agreed to assist each other with maritime search and rescue. This week, Canada is attempting to rescue British, French, American and Pakistani citizens; next week, those or other countries might be rescuing some of us.
Take Australia. With a population smaller than Canada, it has assumed search-and-rescue responsibilities over vast tracts of the Pacific, Indian and Southern oceans. Its most famous rescue came in 1997, when two competitors in a solo around-the-world sailing race sent distress signals from 2,500 kilometres southwest of the country. Long-range patrol aircraft flew a total of 158 hours, finding the damaged boats and monitoring them until a naval vessel could arrive.
In Canada, the crews of CH-149 Cormorant helicopters perform similar heroic feats, with search and rescue designated as a “no fail mission.” In 2003, one Cormorant flew a 1,200-km round trip to rescue 17 people from a Finnish cargo ship that was drifting without power into the path of a hurricane.
A submersible bound for the Titanic has been missing for two days. Here’s what is known so far
The situation is different on land, where each country takes its own approach. Seventeen climbers died on Mount Everest this year; in most cases, Nepalese authorities made no effort to rescue them. In 2008, New Hampshire passed a law allowing costs to be recovered from rescued people if officials determine they acted unreasonably.
Within Canada, volunteer groups, such as Vancouver’s iconic North Shore Rescue, play important roles, and nobody is ever made to pay for being rescued.
Most Canadians recognize that rescuing people is the right thing to do, whether for ethical or religious (Good Samaritan) reasons. We also accept that everyone makes mistakes, and we don’t want anyone to hesitate about calling for help because of concerns about being billed.
The same approach applies on the world’s oceans for the same reasons, and because no single country can ensure prompt and effective responses over such vast and hostile spaces.
The five men whose submersible went missing this week were visiting the Titanic, which sank in 1912. It was that terrible accident that prompted the adoption, two years later, of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. Each party to that convention is required “to ensure that any necessary arrangements are made … for the rescue of persons in distress at sea round its coasts.”
In 1979, the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue reiterated the obligation to “ensure that assistance is rendered to any person in distress at sea.”
These treaties have been ratified by most countries, and the duty to rescue on the oceans is now part of customary international law.
Not all countries live up to their obligations. The behaviour of the Greek coast guard, which reportedly monitored but refused to assist hundreds of migrants trapped on a distressed fishing vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, was flat-out illegal and should be condemned by Canada and other countries.
Condemnation is all the more important because Greece is undermining the global system of maritime search and rescue, which was always intended to be available to everyone.
Meanwhile, in the North Atlantic, Canada has stepped up. One Navy and two Coast Guard vessels have been deployed. Most valuably, several CP-140 Aurora aircraft, designed for anti-submarine warfare, have been dropping sonar buoys. They have detected sounds that could be coming from the submersible – someone banging on the inside of the hull with a wrench, perhaps, attempting to alert rescuers.
We must hold onto hope, while knowing that the oxygen supply on board is unlikely to last until a rescue-capable submersible can be deployed.
Whatever the outcome, the efforts of our Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force should be applauded. They’ve demonstrated that Canada keeps its promises. In this case, it’s a promise grounded in the recognition that human beings are always worthy of rescue, whether they’re billionaires or migrants.