INTRODUCTION. Modern maritime law is replete with a variety of legal acts of the interstate level, but the problems of ensuring security in this area remain relevant. At the international level, it is very difficult to establish a clear connection between the rules of law and actual legal relations. In order to strive to realize this, it is necessary to constantly analyze the real situation, trying to improve it or put it in order with the help of legal mechanisms, which is what this study is aimed at. This work is devoted to the analysis of relations in the field of merchant shipping from the point of view of ensuring security and stability in order to understand the possibility of improving international legal norms. As a territorial scope, interstate relations of Asian countries, including Russia, were considered as the most promising and interesting region from a scientific point of view, including in the context of increased measures of negative economic pressure on Russia from a number of states in North America and Europe. In the current political and economic conditions, not only the doctrine turns its attention to this direction, positioning the vector of domestic development as Eurasian, and sometimes completely Asian. MATERIALS AND METHODS. To prepare this work, an analysis of international legal acts, law enforcement practice was carried out, and expert assessments were monitored on various issues of ensuring the safety of navigation in the Asian region. The results obtained are based on the consideration of economic, political science, management and other literature in addition to the works of legal scholars. The comparative legal method was used, as well as deduction and synthesis. RESEARCH RESULTS. As a result, it is proposed to consider the possibility of taking additional measures aimed at expanding the functionality of the captain of the vessel to ensure the safety of maritime navigation, including countering illegal actions on board. At the level of the domestic legislation of the Russian Federation and the national legislations of other states of the region, establish clear rules for determining the law applicable on board a ship and extending the jurisdiction of the relevant state to relations arising on a ship. At the same time, the provisions of the domestic legislation of each state must comply with the rules of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of December 10, 1982. Grant broader powers to captains of ships in terms of implementing measures to prevent crimes on board the ship and transfer the person who committed the crime to representatives of foreign law enforcement agencies. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. International merchant shipping is a very complex area of public relations with a large number of entities that have different legal status and, accordingly, are related to each other in the most diverse ways. The main threats to the implementation of these activities are piracy, offenses on board a ship in isolation from the mainland, and illegal extraction of biological resources. Fishing by residents of some states in the territorial waters of others is a topical issue. This work is devoted to the study of the main trends in the development of the system for ensuring the safety of international navigation from different points of view. As an object of research, legal relations in the Asian region are taken as the most diverse from social, economic, political and other points of view. Also, the countries of Asia, including Russia, are among the most rapidly developing, which demands new approaches to the relationship between subjects that require their own legal regulation. As a result, separate proposals have been developed, subject to the adoption of which it will be possible to optimize law enforcement practice on ensuring the safety of navigation.
