As power flows through submarine cables, law of the sea must evolve

Beneath the surface of the world’s oceans lies an infrastructure so essential, modern life would stall without it – yet so invisible it rarely enters public debate. Submarine cables, slender fibre-optic systems laid across the seabed, carry over 95 per cent of global internet traffic, transmitting the data that underpins financial markets, diplomatic exchanges and everyday communication.What appears to be neutral infrastructure is, in fact, a deeply political system – one that exposes a structural blind spot in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.Unclos was negotiated in a pre-digital era, when the ocean was primarily understood through the lenses of territory, navigation and resource extraction. It enshrines the freedom to lay submarine cables across the seabed, including areas beyond national jurisdiction. It did not anticipate a world in which these cables would evolve into dense, privately owned digital arteries.