The Royal Navy will continue to deploy warships globally and to exercise navigational rights, including innocent passage, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed, following a question about visits such as that made by HMS Medway to Punta Arenas in Chile.
The assurance came in a written answer to Lord West of Spithead, the former First Sea Lord, who asked whether the government intended occasional visits by warships exercising their right of innocent passage to continue.
Answering for the department, Minister of State Lord Coaker said: “The Royal Navy will continue to deploy warships globally in support of the United Kingdom’s defence, security and international engagement objectives.”
He added: “Royal Navy vessels routinely exercise their navigational rights in accordance with international law, including the right of innocent passage where applicable, and undertake port visits and defence engagement activities with allies and partners around the world.”
Setting out where those deployments currently stand, Coaker pointed to four examples. “Recent examples of Royal Navy global deployments include HMS Medway operating in the South Atlantic, HMS Trent conducting security and defence engagement activity in the United States and the Caribbean, HMS Spey and HMS Tamar maintaining the United Kingdom’s persistent Indo-Pacific presence, and the UK Carrier Strike Group led by HMS Prince of Wales undertaking operations with NATO Allies in the North Atlantic and High North,” he said.
Those activities, the minister said, “demonstrate the routine global nature of Royal Navy deployments in support of defence, security and international engagement objectives.”
The right of innocent passage is set out in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, under which ships of all states may transit the territorial sea of another provided the passage is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal state. Warships are covered by the provision, though some states, including Chile, require or request prior notification for foreign warships entering their territorial waters, a position the UK and others do not accept as consistent with the convention.
HMS Medway is a Batch 2 River-class offshore patrol vessel. Following several years forward-deployed in the Caribbean, she has been operating in the South Atlantic, where the Royal Navy maintains a standing commitment covering the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the wider region. Punta Arenas, on the Strait of Magellan, is Chile’s principal port for access to Antarctica and the far south, and a regular stop for vessels operating in those waters.
