Quote:
Originally Posted by wodin
I think Carl's position was that the quarantine officers could not board his ship. I'm not sure where the ship was flagged, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't US. I think he was sailing for Maersk, so it was probably Danish.
At any rate, he was a Master Seaman, so I'm pretty sure he was fully cognizant of maritime law.
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If he said as you posted then he was not cognizant at all with maritime law.
This is an area I have worked a lot in in a number of countries. A ship in its travels is subject to flag state inspections (by inspectors of the state the ship is flagged in, or accredited by that state) and port state inspections (by the inspectors of the state whose waters the ship is in. The master of a ship cannot impede port state inspectors at all. These inspections are for the safety of the vessel with respect to manning, essential machinery operating correctly (engines, steering, anchoring, etc.), navigation systems operational, etc., If the port state finds issues which impact upon the safe operation of the ship then the ship will be detained (i.e. it has to stay in port until the deficiency is fixed), or the deficiency noted and a time given within which the deficiency has to be fixed - generally when the ship sails the port state forwards the outstanding deficiencies to the next state the ship will enter and that state's inspectors will monitor them. Over all of this are, of course, the periodic surveys conducted by the classification society the vessel is in (Lloyds, DNV, KR, etc.).
Now all that is separate to biosecurity controls but serves to establish that the master of a ship has no authority to prevent port state inspectors boarding and inspecting his vessel. For biosecurity the inspector will, apart from checking the presence of animals and their security, and pests, will check that food items in the ships own stores that are prohibited entry items (which may be fruits, meat, etc.) are secured. If he tried to do so the ship will be either ordered to depart the state or he will be arrested and the ship detained.
It is similar for immigration, biosecurity and customs. The ships master cannot prevent the boarding of his ship by the port state's officers for any those things. If he tries to do so the outcome will be as above. There can be biosecurity situations where the correction of the matter is outside of the master's ability to remedy, such as the infestation of fruit or timber cargo which has prohibited pests in it in which case the ship will be ordered to sea and reentry prohibited until the problem has been corrected (by fumigation, for example) - in fact, just this week a ship has been so ordered here.
I would suspect that in the case of the ship's cat that you mentioned that it was nothing to do with the master of the ship having power to order port state officers off the ship but rather that they considered that with the gang plank manned, or for some other reason the they considered the risk to biosecurity by the cat to be acceptably low and any further intervention not worth the effort.
Any suggestion that the ships master had the authority under international maritime law to prevent port state officers boarding the ship, and especially any right to do that with firearms, is just a salty seadog's exaggerated fictional tale.
{Admission: I have been associated with the marine industries for most of my working life, and aviation for some of it (aviation requirements are similar to the above) in a number of countries. As one part of that I spent some years managing a company part of whose business was the safe operation, inspection and surveying of commercial vessels for both port and flag states. I have also project managed the design and construction of commercial vessels which has included the management of temporary entry and operations during commissioning in the port state they were built in, and their entry to the register of ships, etc., and the conditions on the vessel (survey, inspections, issue of MMSI and callsigns, etc.,) in the country they were to be flagged in.}