This chapter introduces the reader to port State jurisdiction in public international law, linking customary law traditions to its utilization in the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). Its provisions are contextualized within their relationship to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, both historically as a matter of treaty negotiations, and contemporarily as a matter of defining generally accepted international rules and standards for port States regulating vessel-source pollution. Port States play a key role in promoting and evolving the uniform and universal application of MARPOL standards as, by-and-large, minimum global standards. Complementary principles—such as no more favorable treatment—and mechanisms—such as regional port State control memorandums—are highlighted, as well as several relevant implementation strategies, for example, concentrated inspection campaigns.
The regionalization process promoted by the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) enabled the formulation of a new governance arrangement at the sub-national regional level of the Northern Adriatic Sea (NAS). Given the potential for dominating narratives to foster simplified solutions for fishery management, the article sought to analyze discourse formations across Italian Regional Fishery Departments (RFDs) of the NAS. A discourse analysis based on the Discursive Agency Approach (DAA) delineated the discursive strategies, while a weak vs strong sustainability narrative was adopted to broadly group stakeholders into discourse coalitions. The results showed the presence of a dominating narrative in RFD settings, prioritizing the economic growth of the fishery sector - particularly the trawling industry - over current environmental concerns. The study points to a possibly increasing dominance of weak sustainability narratives in the Italian NAS and invites for stakeholders' representation to significantly broaden and diversify, enabling the development of multifaceted solutions to the NAS crisis.
This chapter examines the role of industry self-regulation in relation to international maritime law. While multilateral intergovernmental agreements are important to encouraging regulatory harmonisation, private actors have an essential role in industry, both in developing norms and in making rules and standards effective to ensure safe and secure shipping on clean oceans. Nonetheless, private actors are often overlooked and yet to be placed in the context of international maritime law and especially the United Nations Convention of Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This chapter does so by analysing industry self-regulation in relation to UNCLOS, flag states and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) respectively.
This article discusses the role of private regulators within the international legal framework of Arctic shipping. The role of private actors has been acknowledged both in legal scholarship and policy papers; but it has not yet been placed in the centre of attention. This article does so by analysing the role of private actors under the Polar Code and three types of private regulation — guidelines of classification societies, requirements of insurance industry and private contracting. It concludes that private actors have an essential role both in developing and effectuation of public international law and thus in achieving sustainable Arctic shipping.
This report presents the results of Activity 3.2-2 of the Scandria®2Act project. It investigates the sensitivity of the Ro-Ro services along the Scandria® corridor to fuel cost fluctuations, anticipates the adverse effects of a possible fuel price hike and discusses potential mitigating measures.
Among the 77 Ro-Ro services that include at least one direct connection between two Baltic ports, the Finland-Germany connections were selected for further examination mainly because this is where the ScanMed and NSB core network corridors meet providing two major alternatives, each of which offer at least two options. In terms of abatement options available to the Ro-Ro operators, the study considers only the switching from Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) to the compliant but more expensive Marine Gas Oil (MGO), which happens to be the only feasible solution in the short-run that does not require a substantial capital investment.
The study deployed two different approaches in meeting its objectives. The first one looked at the problem from the macro-level perspective and the analysis was based on aggregate annual statistics of the ports serving the Finland-Germany connections. A multiple regression model estimated the sensitivity of cargo flows to fuel price fluctuations. Although most of the cargo volumes exhibit a statistically significant sensitivity to fuel price, in all cases this is below 1.0, indicating a rather inelastic
behaviour. The results show that an increase in fuel price penalises the volume of lorries on the longdistance Helsinki-Germany route in favour of the shorter Helsinki-Tallinn and Hanko-Germany options. The trailer (unaccompanied) traffic exhibit a different behaviour that might relate to the pricing policies of the Ro-Ro operators in relation to this market segment.
The core function of UNCLOS is to provide a legal order for the oceans and their peaceful uses. This includes providing a legal framework for upholding law and order at sea, as this is a precondition for peaceful use. Part One of this volume deals with different perspectives of upholding law and order at sea; and Chapter 2 creates a backdrop for the following chapters dealing with these various issues. The chapter presents some perspectives on the system of law and order at sea and sets the following chapters in context with themes such as the scope of UNCLOS and its limitations, the adaptability of the convention to new developments, the role of the zonal system created under the convention and the influence of state practice on the system of upholding law and order at sea. By doing so, Chapter 2 also creates a line to the following parts of this volume; and some of the perspectives raised in Chapter 2 will be revisited in the final part (Part Four) of this volume, dealing with UNCLOS as a system of regulation and connected methodologies.
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.
The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has for four decades been considered by many to be one of the most important legislative achievements of international law. It is revered as a “constitution of the oceans”, providing the legal framework for the governance of the oceans. This volume explores how the UNCLOS is functioning in various complex settings, how it adapts to new, emerging developments, as well as how it interacts with other regulations, both within the law of the sea regime and outside. Engaging in themes such as law and order at sea, UNCLOS' interaction with human rights and the role of private actors, the book raises complex questions in the application, understanding, and enforcement of the convention and how it can be envisaged, interpreted, and used in a dynamic world. The volume also raises methodological questions, the answers to which may enhance the predictability and coherence of the law under UNCLOS and thus secure its role as the predominant and relevant system for legal governance at sea for many decades to come. As a contribution to ensuring the future relevance of UNCLOS, the book will be a valuable resource for scholars, diplomats, judges and other practitioners who are working with and interpreting the law of the sea and related issues of maritime law, migration law, human rights law and humanitarian law.
Background:
The third edition of the International Medical Guide for Ships (IMGS) was published in 2007 and supported a main principle of the newly adopted International Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006: to ensure that seafarers are given health protection and medical care as comparable as possible to that which is available to workers ashore. In 2021, the revisions and drafting of the fourth edition of the IMGS began. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic into consideration, it was decided that a stakeholder study was necessary to ascertain the usefulness and practicality of the guide as well as provide input for which new topics to include.
Materials and methods:
The study applied data triangulation, with respondents from a geographically
broad sample of the International Maritime Organization‘s five regional areas of the world. The data was analysed using thematic analysis.
Results:
The results show that the IMGS is widely known and used among persons involved in medical care on board ships, but the IMGS is not as practical as stakeholders would wish it to be. For the guide to be useful, it must be ensured that telemedical advice information is included and if possible, ensure there is one single and global medical guide. Also, there is a need for new medical information, and respondents pointed to pandemic information, medicines list, medical chest, mental health issues, a women’s section, updated cardiopulmonary resuscitation instructions, human immune defect virus information (human immune defect-virus) and information on how seafarers may self-monitor and be monitored on board in relation to chronic diseases.
Conclusions:
Respondents understand a medicine chest on board is mandatory according to the MLC 2006, 98% are familiar with its content, and 86% use the IMGS.