As autonomous vessels begin to replace traditional crews on the open sea, an old legal framework finds itself navigating unfamiliar waters. International maritime law has long ensured that victims of oil spills receive swift compensation by holding shipowners strictly liable — but it says nothing about the remote operators now guiding tankers from shore-based control centers thousands of miles away. A study from Koç University, published in Transnational Environmental Law, surfaces a quiet but consequential gap: the people most directly responsible for a vessel's moment-to-moment decisions may