Maritime authorities from 18 nations issued a stark warning on Tuesday: a patchwork of inconsistent national regulations and a network of vessels evading sanctions could forge a two-tier system in global shipping. The Shipping Consultative Group (CSG) highlighted that geopolitical conflicts, trade restrictions, and disrupted sea lanes are inflating supply chain costs and intensifying uncertainty worldwide. The group is urging stronger international collaboration and the enforcement of uniform shipping standards to safeguard maritime safety, information transparency, and market stability.

Global maritime regulators are sounding the alarm that a "parallel system" is emerging, one that risks dividing international shipping into a double-layered structure and eroding trust and security across the maritime domain. The CSG, an informal cooperative body comprising maritime administrations from 18 shipping nations, issued a joint statement on Tuesday, noting that over 80% of global trade by volume is transported by sea. "If maritime trade were to cease, supply chains would splinter, and the global economy as we know it would grind to a sudden halt," the organization stated.

The group pointed to a cascade of events—the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war, restricted passage through the Panama Canal, and US-Iranian conflicts—that have repeatedly battered shipping supply chains, "heightening uncertainty and adding friction to the efficiency of global supply networks." The Middle East conflict has already created major bottlenecks for global shipping this year, spurred by blockades and hostilities around the critical Strait of Hormuz. Consequently, prices for commodities such as oil and fertilizers have spiked dramatically.

On Tuesday, the CSG warned that various discriminatory trade measures are amplifying the negative impact of these developments on maritime navigation. "Global shipping can only operate efficiently with clear, unified global rules," the coalition stated. "Uncertainty over the future usability of ports and sea routes disrupts long-term business planning for enterprises. When nations diverge in their approaches, a host of regional initiatives and stalled multilateral processes undermine the coherence of the entire system. This fragmentation of rules directly leads to market segmentation, ultimately raising costs for businesses and consumers alike," the group cautioned.

CSG members include maritime authorities from Germany, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and South Korea. Member states said on Tuesday that the geopolitical pressures on shipping are not merely transient shocks but signals of a structural transformation in the operating environment of global trade. "Shipping routes are increasingly being used as leverage in geopolitical games, and they also serve as a source of risk. Sovereignty security, resilience, and economic prosperity all depend on collaborative and pragmatic cooperation to preserve an open global trading system."

The authorities flagged a growing number of vessels engaging in sanction-evasion activities. Hundreds of ships form an unregulated "shadow fleet" that operates outside the frameworks of conventional insurance, safety protocols, and information transparency, further fragmenting global supply chains. "This creates a parallel system within global shipping, elevating risks, bypassing environmental and safety standards, and undermining trust and predictability in the maritime market. The end result is a two-tier structure: one layer bound by rules, the other operating in a black box—both are ultimately weakened by this dynamic," the CSG asserted.

The organization is calling on all maritime nations to "actively support and adhere to the core principles of shipping," emphasizing the need to implement existing international rules across all jurisdictions while providing political backing for the development and enforcement of uniform standards. "Robust international cooperation is not a constraint on national sovereignty but a prerequisite for effective governance in this interconnected world," the CSG noted. "Allowing fragmentation to intensify will undermine the rules-based global maritime framework and increase the risk of disruptions at critical maritime chokepoints. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has already demonstrated that when shipping supply chains collapse, so too does the global economy."