According to the narratives transmitted through media and political discourse, climate change reduces the ice coverage in the Arctic and enhances shipping and other forms of maritime activities. Especially, expectations of an increasing level of transit shipping between Asian, especially Chinese, ports and ports in Europe and North America is dominant. Evidence, however, tells that the numbers of transit shipping through the Arctic Ocean are very limited, and dominated by European shipping companies. For Greenland, political expectations have also been high, since Greenland has been seen as "strategically" situated in relation to new shipping routes in the Arctic, But, again, the actual development has been moderate and not related to international transits but conditions in Greenland itself.
The oceans are increasingly understood as a security space. Does the new maritime security agenda lead to new spatial configurations? This chapter introduces the concept of ‘pragmatic spaces’ to explore spatial configurations produced in responses to maritime security. Four exemplary spaces are discussed: how counter-piracy led to the development of high risk areas, how maritime security capacity building produced new regions constructed through codes of conduct, how the identification of smuggling routes established new forms of international partnerships, and how maritime domain awareness systems advance new transnational spaces of surveillance. These new spatial configurations were introduced to manage maritime security issues and enable transnational forms of governance.
This PhD theis focuses on identifying the opportunities and challenges that on-board maintenance and practical operation of vessels poses in the development of autonomous ships. Inspired by the rapid development of autonomous vehicles considerable effort and interest is now invested in the development of autonomous ships. So far however, most of the research has focused on the legal aspect of unmanned vessels and on developing a system enabling a vessel to operate within the maritime collision regulation without human interaction. Specifically, the theisi looks into three research questions: (1) How is autonomous technology going to affect the workload required for operating and maintaining modern cargo vessels? (2) How is autonomous technology going to affect the operational patterns of the vessels? And (3) How is autonomous technology going to affect the reliability and utilization rate of the vessels?
The study is planned in cooperation between Svendborg International Maritime Academy (SIMAC) and University of Southern Denmark.
In 2021 DS Norden celebrated its 150 years anniversary. In this book Martin Jes Iversen is analyzing the history of the shipping company which is one of the oldest in Denmark. In the first 50 years after being founded in 1871, Norden was a pioneer firm in Danish shipping. This period was followed by five decades of financial stability and gradual stagnation. But in the early 1990s the firm started its journey to become one of the leading firms in the global dry-bulk market. As the world experienced technological, economical and political changes, Norden would also change. Some of these changes were incremental. Others were more abrupt. But they were never predictable.
This chapter provides first a discussion of how maritime security has been conceptualized and theorized and how the field has evolved. It discusses the more particular debates on dedicated maritime security issues: piracy, terrorism, smuggling, environmental crimes and the protection of critical maritime infrastructure. Although the oceans have featured occasionally in the literature on security, peace and development, it is fair to say that for decades scholars were suffering from what some have referred to as collective ‘seablindness’. A range of maritime insecurities have been extensively analysed. These include piracy; terrorism; various forms of smuggling; environmental crimes, hereunder illegal fishing; as well as a nascent literature on maritime critical infrastructures. With ongoing crises in different parts of the world’s oceans, maritime insecurity will continue to be recognized as one of the core dimensions of violence and insecurity. Maritime security also needs to be seen in the context of other international policy areas.
Maritime transport carries around 80% of the world’s trade. It is key to the economic development of many countries, it is a source of income in many countries, and it is considered as a safe and environment friendly mode of transport. Given its undisputed importance, a question is what does the future hold for maritime transport. This chapter is an attempt to answer this question by mainly addressing the drive to decarbonize shipping, along with related challenges as regards alternative low carbon or zero carbon marine fuels. The important role of maritime policy making as a main driver for change is also discussed. Specifically, if maritime transport is to drastically change so as to meet carbon emissions reduction targets, the chapter argues, among other things, that a substantial bunker levy would be the best (or maybe the only) way to induce technological changes in the long run and logistical measures (such as slow steaming) in the short run. In the
long run this would lead to changes in the global fleet towards vessels and technologies that are more energy efficient, more economically viable and less dependent on fossil fuels than those today. In that sense, it would have the potential to drastically alter the face of maritime transport in the future. However, as things stand, and mainly for political reasons, the chapter also argues that the adoption of such a measure is considered as rather unlikely.
Given the move toward automation, an increased focus on the liability for technical defects must be anticipated. This brings into play liability regimes that have traditionally been less used in the maritime area. One of these liability regimes is product liability. It is the purpose of this contribution to examine the implications of product liability rules in the maritime area, seen in light of the automation of ships.
This chapter assesses the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in ports and shipping. Insights from regulatory economics are used to identify industry characteristics under which the SOE model is expected to be effective. With the use of these insights, characteristics of ports, terminals and shipping services that may lead to the establishment of SOEs are identified. The empirical overview of SOEs in shipping and ports shows a rather large use of SOEs, especially in container terminal operations and port development. The use of SOEs particularly in port development can be well understood with insights from regulatory economics. The majority of SOEs in ports, terminals and shipping are active internationally. This raises important additional research questions, most importantly regarding the strategic rationale of SOE internationalization and the role of geopolitical considerations in international activities.
Among the spectrum of logistics – based measures for sustainable shipping, this chapter focuses on speed optimization. This involves the selection of an appropriate speed by the vessel, so as to optimize a certain objective. As ship speed is not fixed, depressed shipping markets and/or high fuel prices induce slow steaming which is being practised in many sectors of the shipping industry. In recent years the environmental dimension of slow steaming has also become important, as ship emissions are directly proportional to fuel burned. Win-win solutions are sought, but they will not necessarily be possible. The chapter presents some basics, discusses the main trade-offs and also examines combined speed and route optimization problems. Some examples are presented so as to highlight the main issues that are at play, and the regulatory dimension of speed reduction via speed limits is also discussed.