When Hugo Grotius wrote Mare Liberum [Freedom of the Seas] in 1609, he was beginning to formulate political concepts that today sees him regarded as ‘The father of International law’. The sea has always been a place where territorial claims and ambitions have led to conflict and today ~39% of the more than 400 maritime boundaries in existence are in dispute (Ásgeirsdóttir & Steinwand, Reference Ásgeirsdóttir and Steinwand2016; Østhagen, Reference Østhagen2020, Reference Østhagen2021). Issues such as rising sea levels, diminishing stocks of marine natural capital, changes in distributions of marine resources and increased demand for these resources are all exacerbating the potential for further conflict in the marine environment (Byers & Østhagen, Reference Byers and Østhagen2019). The key body for resolving maritime boundary disputes is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1982) with its dispute-settlement mechanisms: International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS); the International Court of Justice; the Arbitral Tribunal; and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). The best outcome is that countries resolve their disputes bilaterally rather than invoke third party arbitration or litigation under Article 287 of UNCLOS (Nyman & Tiller, Reference Nyman and Tiller2020) or, more seriously, end up in a conflict, with all the associated economic and other risks (Mendoza et al., Reference Mendoza, Siriban and Ty2019).

More recently however, territorial disputes have begun to be played out in a new arena – scientific journals. This was highlighted in the journal Nature (2011) where it was noted there was a ‘disturbing trend’ for maps in journals to reflect territorial claims in the South China Sea. The plea in the article was for scientists to ‘stick to the science’ and authors to ‘depoliticize their articles’. Despite these pleas, the issue of territorial disputes playing out in the academic literature continues and, for the reasons stated above, marine-focused journals are particularly vulnerable. The Marine Biological Association has two journals and very recently had to deal with a dispute relating to names used in a manuscript for a specific sea and associated islands. In this case, handling editors were being sent ‘official government advice’ by a reviewer along with accusations on breach of ethics for publishing and claims that sampling had been undertaken illegally without appropriate permissions.

The challenge is that major journal publishers generally (Table 1) adopt a ‘neutral’ stance regarding territorial disputes; and, as confirmed by Wiley's policy, it falls to Editors-in-Chief, Handling Editors and reviewers to sort out disputes as an editorial issue. A web search across all the major publishers as well as bodies such as COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) resulted in very little information at all being found related to advice on what to do if territorial disputes between nations cause problems with a manuscript, for example in what map should be used or what name should be given where the designation for an island, sea or other feature is disputed. In addition to publishers, many governments including the UK (Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Pers. Com.) also remain ‘neutral’ in other countries' territorial disputes, so it is left to scientists to navigate between different opinions, legal advice and official guidance – something that most marine biologists should not have to deal with in addition to standard scientific reviewing. This is not because scientists are living in ivory towers – many marine scientists today work at the science–policy interface dealing with issues such as integrity and trust in provision of scientific evidence (e.g. Frost et al., Reference Frost, Baxter, Buckley and Stoker2017; Cvitanovic et al., Reference Cvitanovic, Shellock R, Mackay, van Putten, Karcher, Dickey-Collas and Ballesteros2021) or are involved in the growing area of science-diplomacy (Gore et al., Reference Gore, Nichols and Lipsc2020).

Table 1. A summary of publisher / publishing body policies in relation to jurisdictional claims and territorial disputes

The marine science community also plays an important role in dispute resolution as a key evidence provider to the UNCLOS bodies on issues ranging from baseline measurements to demarcation of boundaries to mapping geological features and natural resource distribution (Polejack, Reference Polejack2021). Marine research is in fact contributing in numerous ways to facilitate dispute resolution. For example, since 1997 the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) has been promoting the ‘parks for peace’ initiative as ‘a tool to enhance regional cooperation for biodiversity conservation, conflict prevention, resolution and reconciliation, and sustainable regional development’ (Sandwith et al., Reference Sandwith, Shine and Sheppard2001). Trans-boundary cooperation as a tool for peace and cooperation has a long history on land and is increasingly being used at sea. Prominent examples include the establishment of the Red Sea Marine Peace Park between Jordan and Israel as part of the 1994 peace treaty and there are now numerous other examples of marine peace parks in the Adriatic (Mackelworth et al., Reference Mackelworth, Holcer and Lazar2013), South China Sea (McManus et al., Reference McManus, Shao and Lin2010) and elsewhere (Mackelworth, Reference Mackelworth2012). This work involves a wide range of marine academic expertise such as conservation, marine management and planning and species expertise (Mackelworth, Reference Mackelworth2012).

The fact is that marine biology is a global discipline with research undertaken in a highly interconnected environment and where a larger geographic context is often vital for understanding. In this issue of the Journal of the Marine Biological Association (JMBA), research ranges in geographic extent from the south-eastern Pacific (Estupiñan-Montaño et al., Reference Estupiñan-Montaño, Carrera-Fernández and Galván-Magaña2021); south-western Pacific (Gordon, Reference Gordon2021); south-western Atlantic (Delpiani et al., Reference Delpiani, Bruno, Militelli, Acuña, Díaz de Astarloa and Gonzalez Castro2021); NE Mediterranean (Seyhan Öztürk et al., Reference Seyhan Öztürk, Izmir and Engin2021); the southern Adriatic (Mandic et al., Reference Mandic, Leonori, De Felice, Gvozdenovic and Pesic2021); the Aegean Sea (Cinar & Dagli, Reference Cinar and Dagli2021); the Arabian sea (Dixit et al., Reference Dixit, Manjebrayakath and Saravanane2021); the Indian Ocean (David et al., Reference David, Williams and Simon2021); the South China Sea (Marshall & Taha, Reference Marshall and Taha2021); the Sea of Japan (Fujiwara et al., Reference Fujiwara, Yasuyuki, Sato, Kawato and Tsuchida2021) and many others. As is usual for marine journals, many of these papers have authors from multiple countries since marine biology is a discipline that works best when carried out in a collaborative manner, working across national and global boundaries, bringing in multiple disciplines and sharing data and expertise freely. This is not just practical expediency – a diversity of approach, thought and personnel in scientific communities has been shown to be a crucial element in research success (Freeman & Huang, Reference Freeman and Huang2014). In this context, scientific collaboration becomes an easy venue for some states to impose their political interests when standards on boundary disputes for publication are lacking (Nature, 2011; Thuy Anh, Reference Thuy Anh2020). This, in turn, can raise tensions and cause repercussions on both the quality and quantity of scientific collaboration among academics in different countries (Owen, Reference Owen2020). Thus, since it is not the role of the scientific community to resolve interstate disputes, the only solution to avoid being a target for political propaganda is to establish unified approaches that are mandatory for the submission of academic work.

There is a need now for publishers and universities to recognize that territorial and other political disputes played out in the academic literature are an increasing problem requiring greater support and guidance for already overloaded academics. It is good to hear therefore that there is starting to be some movement on that front with publishers (for example, JMBA's publisher Cambridge University Press) recognizing the issue and starting to develop more support and guidance. However, while there is an opportunity for publishing companies to establish better guidance for authors, editors and reviewers, the danger arises that a lack of a harmonized system among the academic community, including publishers, may lead to more controversies than it addresses. Accordingly, global bodies such as the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) are the most appropriate actors to establish parameters and uniform approaches to navigating the complex balance between maintaining editorial independence of journals and their owners or publishers, and providing appropriate support. No author, reviewer, Handling Editor or Editor-in-Chief should be operating ‘in the dark’ and clear rules of engagement for handling disputes in the literature are urgently required.

But ultimately, the onus is on us, the marine scientific community to hold ourselves and each other to account in not bringing politics into science. With a host of international collaborations being announced as part of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, marine biology is providing a great example of a community united for exploration, discovery and cooperation. This is therefore a plea to recognize the importance of diplomacy as we work together to address the serious challenges we are facing in our ocean – we must not let politics undermine our science.