This book examines how the shipping industry is responding to the commercial challenges caused by geopolitical risk.

Geopolitical volatility in the modern world is generating physical and economic obstacles that are disrupting shipping activities and causing disputes that raise fundamental questions of commercial law. Studying this phenomenon by exploring common themes among varied dimensions of business disruption, the book first explores physical disruption to shipping activities across the categories of war, unrest, and piracy. It then turns to the purely economic disruption caused by sanctions and alternative forms of statecraft deployed in “trade wars.” The book examines each of these categories by highlighting geopolitical and regulatory context, assessing industry adaptations, and analysing cross-jurisdictional case law to gather insight into the contractual rights and responsibilities impacted by these scenarios.

Assessing solutions-including the development of bespoke contract clauses and the application of broader principles of illegality, impossibility, frustration, and force majeure-the book demonstrates that this rapidly evolving area of international commercial law demands a readiness to borrow analytical approaches across categories of business disruption.

With industry participants, courts, arbitrators, and scholars in mind, the book provides a contemporary perspective on the geopolitical challenges affecting shipping through a distinctive commercial law lens.