Multilevel cooperation on behalf of the ocean governance: the Brazilian Navy case study

The South Atlantic basin (ocean and inland waters) has become an area of growing interest over recent years. Following the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the South Atlantic states have found themselves addressing new concerns about sovereign rights over the maritime areas, which have been dominated by a security perspective, through the unilateral expansion of crime prevention structures in the region. This progressive securitisation has been brought about by the growth of illicit trade routes and awareness of crimes at sea, such as illegal fishing and mining. Additionally, the expansion of interagency operations and multinational initiatives in the South Atlantic demonstrates the significance of cooperative frameworks in ocean governance. Those can be used to map the relationship between institutions with different interests, and to demonstrate its effects on the stability of multilevel interagency schemes. At this juncture, it is necessary to have visibility of good order at sea through frameworks that characterise ocean governance. For this purpose, we have proposed two data mappings: (1) the international cooperation of the Brazilian Navy, and (2) the inland waters and oceanic basins illicit routes, based on interagency combat operations. The goal is to detect and analyse counter-illicit data and interagency maritime cooperation frameworks in the west South Atlantic basin, observing the current strengths and gaps. Furthermore, we gather domestic and foreign agencies’ operations as motors of oceanic governance, ranging from the local to the international, and characterising a multilevel cooperation framework.