Knowledge

In seeking to fulfill its mission, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is dependent on the capabilities of its Member States. While flag States remain primarily responsible for ensuring compliance of their registered vessels with instruments adopted under that United Nations specialized agency's aegis, coastal States also play a competing but complementary role in the balance of jurisdiction over ships. In particular, the right to regulate the vessel's intent on visiting the port, or its presence therein, is often relied upon to account for the limitations of flag State enforcement. The capacity to act as a port State under international law is the basis for certain implementation mechanisms stemming from treaty provisions on port state control, as well as for innovative practices of port States, either collectively or individually. This chapter provides the reader with an overview of the role of port State jurisdiction in IMO law and practice, and the challenges that can arise in the complex relationship between port States and the IMO.

Global warming and, correspondingly, reducing CO2 emissions is one of the most challenging tasks the world faces today. The maritime industry contributed to 2.89% of the global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. To decrease this share, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) defined, among others, the goal to reduce the carbon intensity of international shipping by 40% until 2030. In this context, the short-term measures recently adopted, in the form of a technical standard (Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index, EEXI) and a rating scheme based on an operational indicator (Carbon Intensity Indicator, CII), mark a crucial step to achieving the mentioned goal. In addition, the EU Commission has recently introduced the FuelEU Maritime Initiative limiting the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of a ship’s energy use incorporating a reduction occurring in a five-year rhythm between 2025 and 2050. The paper investigates the practical options availed to existing containerships of different sizes and technological vintages for meeting the specific EEXI, CII, and GHG intensity reduction requirements imposed by the regulations. The investigation will be based on the actual technical and operational profiles of six sample ships and will consider a set of possible compliance options including, but not limited to, engine power limitation, waste heat recovery system, variable frequency drives, and virtual arrival. The data used originates from noon reports of existing containerships provided by a European industry leader. The ship-specific CO2 emission reduction potentials required for the impact assessment result from either literature or actual data-based calculations. Financial data is used for investigating the economic impact of the reduction requirements. Conclusions drawn include an operational advantage that pre-EEDI ships enjoy when applying engine power limitation (EPL) for EEXI compliance, the occurrence of payback periods exceeding ship lifetimes, and an estimate of the effect that onshore power supply can have on complying with the FuelEU Maritime Initiative.

The international Maritime Organization (IMO) Weather Criterion has proven to be the governing stability criteria regarding minimum metacentric height for e.g., small ferries and large passenger ships. The formulation of the Weather Criterion is based on some empirical relations derived many years ago for vessels not necessarily representative for current new buildings with large superstructures. Thus, it seems reasonable to investigate the possibility of capsizing in beam sea under the joint action of waves and wind using direct time domain simulations. This has already been done in several studies. Here, it is combined with the first order reliability method (FORM) to define possible combined critical wave and wind scenarios leading to capsize and corresponding probability of capsize. The FORM results for a fictitious vessel are compared with Monte Carlo simulations, and good agreement is found at a much lesser computational effort. Finally, the results for an existing small ferry will be discussed in the light of the current weather criterion.

In this video, Professor Harilaos Psaraftis (DTU Technical University of Denmark) will outline the main decarbonization challenges.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted the so-called Initial IMO Strategy in 2018, stipulating that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from international shipping need to be reduced by at least 50% by 2050, and CO2 emissions per transport work are to be reduced by at least 40% by the year 2030, both compared to the 2008 levels.

At the same time, there is an elephant in the room: It is the intent of the European Commission and the European Parliament to include shipping into the EU ETS. How the elephant will be handled is not clear. In this talk we will outline the main decarbonization challenges through a focus on a RoPax case study.
The session was developed in collaboration with MARLOG.

The 0.1% sulphur limit within Sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECA) has made compulsory the use of either pricier ultra-low sulphur fuel, or the installation of abatement technologies that require significant capital investments. Due to the unexpectedly low fuel prices, Ro-Ro operators have been able to cope with the new sulphur limits, but recent research has shown that if fuel prices increase some Ro-Ro services may face the risk of closure. This paper proposes three key performance indicators (KPIs) to enable the asssessment of the impact of SECAs on Ro-Ro shipping. The KPIs are used on a set of case studies for services of a leading European Ro-Ro operator, and allow benchmarking of a series of operational and policy measures that aim to reverse the negative impacts of SECAs. The operational measures consider speed reduction, new sailing frequency, fleet reconfiguration, as well as investments in abatement technologies. Policy measures include the options of either subsidizing shippers or ship operators, or alternatively introducing new taxes on landbased options. The KPIs can be useful to ship operators seeking to improve the resilience of their network, as well as to regulatory bodies designing new environmental policies and understanding any negative implications these may have on ship operators.

As a reaction to an increasing concern with the decreasing of standards in shipping during the 1970s and 1980s the International Maritime Organization adopted the ISM Code, which became mandatory in 1998. This study revisits the ISM Code, firstly exploring the genesis of the code at the international level, and then its operationalization at the national and local level. Based on a three-step case study, the interplay between the essence of the ISM Code and praxis onboard is explored. The study explores the distortion and erosion of the essence of the ISM Code when implemented on the national level in Danish law (step one) and by two Danishbased companies (step two) and finally investigates the local effect of the code as it is displayed onboard (step three).
The study is conducted as an applied socio-legal study; thus, it adopts both an internal (doctrinal) and an external (empirical) approach. It also combines the topdown and bottom-up perspective, consequently applying different methods to fit the content of the different levels examined, while maintaining a qualitative approach.
The research design is inspired by the hermeneutic circle. The first circle (Part I the international level) explores the genesis of the ISM Code, aim to explore the causal explanation for and to determine the essence of the ISM Code. The ‘essence’ is constituted by the ‘principles’ that the regulators intended to be essential to achieve ‘the purpose’. With Santos’s cartographic metaphor as a theoretical analytical framework combined with legal dogmatic method, the first part concentrates on small-scale legality (the international level). The second circle (Part II) is related to medium-scale legality (the national/transnational level). Part II explore the operationalisation of the ISM Code as it is implemented in Danish law, applying legal dogmatic method, combined with analyses of written formal communication to identify the inter-legality that distort the principles when implemented at a national level (step one and two). The third circle (Part III) relates to large-scale legality, applying Goffman’s theoretical framework to analyse the micro level, that constitute the onboard praxis. Praxis is compared with legislation, v revealing a frontstage behaviour that is compliant with regulation and documented by checklists, while in fact praxis deviate, ‘to make it work’ the crew exhibits what Goffman denoted a backstage behaviour.
The ISM Code introduces meta-regulation as a regulatory mechanism. Metaregulation is linked to Santos’s concept of globalization and governance matrix; the study applies Parker’s definition of meta-regulation and the triple loop to study the concept.
The study identifies three principles that constitute the essence of the ISM Code; (1) to establish a genuine link between the company and the flag State; (2) to ensure that the company becomes responsible for the ship’s operation; and (3) to empower the master, ensuring her or his authority. The analyses proved that each of the three principals were distorted at respectively meso and micro level, and that even though the intent was to promote good ship management, in reality it has provided companies the opportunity strut in borrowed plumes.

Policy emphasis in ship design must be shifted away from global and idealized towards regional based and realistic vessel operating conditions. The present approach to reducing shipping emissions through technical standards tends to neglect how damages and abatement opportunities vary according to location and operational conditions. Since environmental policy originates in damages relating to ecosystems and jurisdictions, a three-layered approach to vessel emissions is intuitive and practical. Here, we suggest associating damages and policies with ports, coastal areas possibly defined as Emission Control Areas (ECA) as in the North Sea and the Baltic, and open seas globally. This approach offers important practical opportunities: in ports, clean fuels or even electrification is possible; in ECAs, cleaner fuels and penalties for damaging fuels are important, but so is vessel handling, such as speeds and utilization. Globally we argue that it may be desirable to allow burning very dirty fuels at high seas, due to the cost advantages, the climate cooling benefits, and the limited ecosystem impacts. We quantify the benefits and cost savings from reforming current IMO and other approaches towards environmental management with a three-layered approach, and argue it is feasible and worth considering.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is a specialized United Nations (UN) agency regulating maritime transport. One of the very hot topics currently on the IMO agenda is decarbonization. In that regard, the IMO decided in 2018 to achieve by 2050 a reduction of at least 50% in maritime green house gas (GHG) emissions vis-à-vis 2008 levels. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the possible role of Market Based Measures (MBMs) so as to achieve the above target. To that effect, a brief discussion of MBMs at the IMO and the EU is presented, and a possible way forward is proposed, focusing on a bunker levy.

The power to regulate on-board protection of merchant vessels lies with the flag state. However, the national models of regulation are not developed in a unilateral vacuum. In fact, the whole concept of flag state jurisdiction and legislative power has to be understood and exercised on the national level in close relation with the general regime of the international law of the sea. The aim of the article is therefore two-fold: first, it aims to provide a background for the country reports in this special issue by giving a brief insight into the problem of piracy in the twenty-first century and the international approaches towards this problem. Here the article also provides an insight into the legal background by presenting the concept of piracy in the law of the sea and connected law enforcement powers. Thus, this part of the article provides the overall context in which the discussions concerning on-board protection and the development of national regulations have occurred. Second, the article analyses the issue of on-board protection from the perspective of the legal framework in international law, as well as relevant international soft-law instruments, influencing the development on the national level. On-board protection of vessels as such is not regulated in the international law; however, international law provides a form of general legal setting, in which flags states navigate. Thus, this article aims to draw a picture of the international context in which flags states develop their specific legal approach.

Maritime shipping is the transmission belt of the global economy. It is also a major contributor to global environmental change through its under-regulated air, water and land impacts. It is puzzling that shipping is a lagging sector as it has a well-established global regulatory body—the International Maritime Organization. Drawing on original empirical evidence and archival data, we introduce a four-factor framework to investigate two main questions: why is shipping lagging in its environmental governance; and what is the potential for the International Maritime Organization to orchestrate emerging private ‘green shipping’ initiatives to achieve better ecological outcomes? Contributing to transnational governance theory, we find that conditions stalling regulatory progress include low environmental issue visibility, poor interest alignment, a broadening scope of environmental issues, and growing regulatory fragmentation and uncertainty. The paper concludes with pragmatic recommendations for the International Maritime Organization to acknowledge the regulatory difficulties and seize the opportunity to orchestrate environmental progress.