I’m not a legal expert, but if what Lawrence Atkin-Teillet said is based on strict technicality, then by all definition it’s “not violating the law”. Whether someone agrees or disagrees with this doesn’t matter, because for anyone who even has an inkling of awareness and knowledge of international laws and legal philosophy, is that there is no enforcement. Even in a different reality where someone says that US confiscating a ship is piracy, if it there is still no enforcement then in its spirit it’s now a law. Most “international laws” are more like guidelines. Both the US invasion of Iraq and Russian invasion of Ukraine are illegal as deemed by the UN. Both weren’t punished in any case.

The reality is that there is no such thing as “law” on the international level, because something is a law if it’s strictly enforceable and violators are punished. But none are punished. We are in a ruderless ship with different big boys trying to wrestle the helm from one another while the rest of us are drowning. We’re all just monkeys in suits pretending to be “civilised” and above animals.