Strict limits on the maximum sulphur content in fuel used by ships have recently been imposed in some Emission Control Areas (ECAs). In order to comply with these regulations many ship operators will switch to more expensive low-sulphur fuel when sailing inside ECAs. Since they are concerned about minimizing their costs, it is likely that speed and routing decisions will change because of this. In this paper, we develop an optimization model to be applied by ship operators for determining sailing paths and speeds that minimize operating costs for a ship along a given sequence of ports. We perform a computational study on a number of realistic shipping routes in order to evaluate possible impacts on sailing paths and speeds, and hence fuel consumption and costs, from the ECA regulations. Moreover, the aim is to examine the implications for the society with regards to environmental effects. Comparisons of cases show that a likely effect of the regulations is that ship operators will often choose to sail longer distances to avoid sailing time within ECAs. Another effect is that they will sail at lower speeds within and higher speeds outside the ECAs in order to use less of the more expensive fuel. On some shipping routes, this might give a considerable increase in the total amount of fuel consumed and the CO2 emissions.
We introduce a decision support tool for liner shipping companies to optimally determine the sailing speed and needed fleet for a global network. As a novelty we incorporate cargo routing decisions with tight transit time restrictions on each container such that we get a realistic picture of the utilization of the network. Furthermore, we show that it is possible to extend the model to include optimal time scheduling decisions such that the time associated with transshipments is also reflected accurately. To solve the speed optimization problem we propose an exact algorithm based on Benders decomposition and column generation that exploits the separability of the problem. Computational results show that the method is applicable to liner shipping networks of realistic size and that it is important to incorporate cargo routing decisions when optimizing speed.
A number of solutions, with varying efficiency, have been proposed to mitigate discards. In this paper twelve mitigation measures were reviewed by their strengths and weaknesses, along with opportunities and threats, they might entail. How mitigation methods could either support or counteract others was also reviewed. The analyses of the mitigation measures are based on expert knowledge and experience and supported with existing literature. Discarding is highly variable and is influenced by numerous biological, technical and operational factors as well as social and economic drivers. These influences need to be carefully considered when designing management approaches. Finally, all reforms must be carefully considered within the context of a broader management system. The full management system needs to be thought of coherently to create an incentive framework that motivates fishers to avoid unwanted catches. It is only in this setting that discard mitigation methods may be potentially effective.
The impact of climate change in the Arctic Ocean such as ice melting and ice retreat facilitates natural resources extraction. Arctic fossil fuel becomes the drivers of geopolitical changes in the Arctic Ocean. Climate change facilitates natural resource extractions and increases competition between states and can result in tensions, even military ones. This article investigates through a political and legal analysis the role of China as an emerging regulatory sea power in the Arctic Ocean given its assertive “energy hungry country behaviour” in the Arctic Ocean. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Arctic Council (AC) are taken into consideration under climate change effects, to assess how global legal frameworks and institutions can deal with China’s strategy in the Arctic Ocean. China’s is moving away from its role as “humble power” to one of “informal imperialistic” resulting in substantial impact on the Arctic and Antartic dynamism. Due to ice-melting, an easy access to natural resources, China’s Arctic strategy in the Arctic Ocean has reinforced its military martitime strategy and has profoundly changed its maritime military doctrine shifting from regional to global in the context of UNCLOS. In particular, it is wondered, what China understands about the public order dimension of UNCLOS. The article concludes that despite China’ assertive behaviour towards the Arctic environmental ocean and its rise as global sea power, for the time being, China cannot be considered as a variable for Arctic security as there are no sufficient legal and policy objective elements to adduct that it constitutes a threat to Artic ocean security.
Ship-source pollution represents a threat to the environment, regardless of where it occurs. The European Union has been developing standards that aim to counter accidental, operational and intentional pollution in the waters under its member-state's jurisdiction. However, and precisely because marine pollution knows no boundaries, the EU is not coy in contemplating what ships do beyond waters under the sovereignty of its member states. This article analyzes the international legality of EU claims to port state jurisdiction over ship-source pollution. It demonstrates that port state jurisdiction is today not only a means to ensure compliance with international standards but also a means to unilaterally enforce more stringent environmental standards.
This paper deals with two speed optimization problems for ships that sail in and out of Emission Control Areas (ECAs) with strict limits on sulfur emissions. For ships crossing in and out of ECAs, such as deep-sea vessels, one of the common options for complying with these limits is to burn heavy fuel oil (HFO) outside the ECA and switch to low-sulfur fuel such as marine gas oil (MGO) inside the ECA. As the prices of these two fuels are generally very different, so may be the speeds that the ship will sail at outside and inside the ECA. The first optimization problem examined by the paper considers an extension of the model of Ronen (1982) in which ship speeds both inside and outside the ECA are optimized. The second problem is called the ECA refraction problem, due to its conceptual similarity with the refraction problem when light travels across two different media, and also involves optimizing the point at which the ship crosses the ECA boundary. In both cases the objective of the problem is to maximize daily profit. In addition to mathematical formulations, examples and sensitivity analyses are presented for both problems.
The aim of this article is to illustrate the most important changes in the regulatory framework of the shipping sector from the 1960s to 2010, and to analyse the basis for, and effects of, these changes. In order to explain how the transformation has occurred, we use two traditional maritime nations—Denmark and Norway—as case studies. First, we introduce the two regimes of Danish and Norwegian shipping: ‘the national regime’ from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s; and ‘the competitive regime’, which was fully established by the middle of the 1990s and still persists. Then, we briefly sketch the bargaining that accompanied the shift from the national regime to the competitive regime. Specifically, we show that the new regime primarily accommodated the interests of private actors such as shipping companies, rather than the interests of the authorities and the trade unions.
This article investigates recent reforms of the Greenland coastal fisheries in order to contribute to the general lessons on reform and policy networks in the context of a changing Arctic stakeholdership. It analyzes participation in fisheries governance decision-making by examining the emergence of discourses and policy networks that come to define the very need for reform. A policy network is identified across state ministries, powerful officials, banks and large scale industry that defined the need for fisheries reform within a 'grand reform' discourse. But inertia characterized the actual decision-making process as reform according to this 'grand reform' discourse was blocked by a combination of small-scale fishermen' informal networks and the power of the parliamentary majority. After a parliamentary shift in power the new government implemented the 'grand reform' gradually whilst new patterns of participation and exclusion emerged. In this process, the identities of the participating participants were reinterpreted to fit the new patterns of influence and participation. The article argues that fishery reform does not necessarily start with the collective recognition of a problem in marine resource use and a power-neutral process of institutional learning. Instead, it argues that fishery reform is likely to be the 'reform of somebody' and that this 'somebody' is itself a changing identity.
The legal limbo that defines the maritime space over which the process of delimitation of the outer continental shelf is applied appears today as an eminently practical question that needs to be addressed. The institutional framework provided by UNCLOS, which establishes the existence of an internationalized space on the seabed - the area - seems limited to respond to a debate that confuses Geology with Law. This article focuses on the powers of the International Seabed Authority as an agency authorized to act on behalf of Mankind by exploring its weaknesses in its exercise of this mandate in the context of that process. By analyzing the conflict between the expansionist goals of States and the embodied principle that gives the Authority the assignment to act on behalf of Mankind in securing a space that, according to the text of the Convention, belongs to it, we conclude that there are apparent inconsistencies in the institutional framework created the Montego Bay Convention. In our exegesis of Part XI of the Convention, we work on the cogent force of that principle and raise questions about the legal legitimacy of the entire process, ie in the absence of a clear statement by the above-mentioned Authority. We conclude that the text of the Convention provides the possibility of a direct intervention by the Authority but that there are still no political conditions for such a possibility to be realised.