But laws and regulations held in abeyance – as they are in free zones or special economic zones that so often flank ports – are also crucial in creating the pulsating economic macro-organisms that port systems are today

Curzon arrived on a viceregal tour of the Persian Gulf so that he could claim the much-contested body of water and its littorals for Britain.

It is a mistake to imagine these dhows as remnants or residues of ‘traditional’ trade; their business has flourished alongside, in the interstices of, and because of the more global, large-scale, and mechanised trade of container ships and modern bulk carriers.

In his commissioned hagiography of Aramco, Wallace Stegner describes the momentary silence of the oil terminals:

In the 1950s, as anticolonial movements unravelled the empire and nationalist sentiments roiled the tricontinents, the British began to consider a programme of economic development as a bulwark against the possibility of revolution.

A rocky hill stands tall on a promontory jutting out to sea at the southernmost edge of the town; along with two other rocky atolls nearby, it is a recognisable landmark

Infilling coastal areas with material dredged from the sea introduces sedimented marine pollution into liminal coastal areas and shorelines.

But the case is notable for the portentous and pedantic elaborations made by the arbitrator,

States can also choose to create enclaves where laws and regulations are held in abeyance, ostensibly to spur commerce.

These security measures provide spaces in which states intentionally exercise a ‘variegated sovereignty’ in which there is little or no corporate tax, little or no income tax for noncitizens, no customs or tariffs, and very little regulation.