Oceanic legalities and justice in contested maritime boundaries Perspectives from the Nicaraguan-Colombian sea region

Prolonged and emerging disputes over land and maritime territories are intensifying worldwide, leading to increasingly rigid and contested state boundaries amplified by climate change, ocean grabbing under blue economy initiatives, and the resurgence of nationalist and securitized policy agendas. This PhD thesis examines how contested maritime borders generate and sustain ocean injustices, focusing on the disputed Nicaraguan–Colombian maritime boundary region in the Western Caribbean. The research centers on the state-dependent islands of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina (Colombia) and the Corn Islands (Nicaragua), inhabited by Afro-Indigenous communities. It asks how legal regimes governing contested marine borders maintain or produce new forms of ocean injustices while examines the strategies of oceanic communities to resist exclusion and defend their rights. It shows how forms of legal colonialism remain embedded within dominant ocean systems ocean governance. The study highlights how communities challenge these dynamics through interconnected forms of legal activism and social mobilization. It argues for a shift away from sovereignty-centered and land-based understandings of ocean governance toward a relational ocean justice perspective that foregrounds i)the environmental and human rights within judicial processes and legal institutions; ii)the Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies into the marine living and non-living resources management; iii)the traditional sea-mobility that affirms ocean’s interconnectedness and Indigenous spatialities, and; iv)the rights of artisanal fisher people whose practices have been illegalized and criminalized. It thus calls for rethinking maritime dispute-resolution mechanisms beyond rigid territorial divisions and for recognizing Indigenous and alternative legalities as legitimate pathways toward equitable, sustainable, and justice-oriented governance.