‘Flags of Convenience’: Geoeconomics and Regulatory Minimisation

Geoeconomics is an increasingly powerful conditioning factor within the organisation of ‘the global’. Flags of Convenience (shipping registries) are highlighted as an example of this importance. Shipping companies have traditionally sought to take advantage of different regulatory conditions around the world by registering under a particular ‘flag’, selecting a sovereign state with regulations that suit the company in question. This situation establishes difficulties associated with the global regulation of merchant shipping. Geoeconomic developments during the second half of the twentieth century have resulted in international flexibility and the relative ease of transboundary movements of capital and products between firms and markets. This paper utilises the example of Flags of Convenience as one of the oldest examples of geoeconomic flexibility within the global geo‐political economy, and one that exposes the complexities of increasing globalisation and regulation at the turn of the millennium.