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 paper discusses how public interests in seaports can be secured in the corporatized model. This corporatized model, in which port authorities engage in port development on a commercial basis, is increasingly used. We discuss in detail an important question that so far has not received attention in the literature on port governance: how can the public shareholders use their influence as shareholders of port authorities to achieve public policy goals. We advance the theoretical body of knowledge by applying insights from regulatory economics to the port industry. As an empirical illustration, we analyse the current practices of the public shareholders of the four large Dutch port authorities, based on policy documents and interviews. All of them have explicit shareholder policies. However, some of these policies are too broad to provide sufficient direction for the management team and supervisory board of the port authority involved.
Hydrogen energy is a promising solution for prompting low-carbon port development. This study introduces two hydrogen utilization strategies: hydrogen consumption-driven strategy (HCDS) and hydrogen storage-driven strategy (HSDS). Using data from a real port and a life-cycle assessment approach, a case study is conducted to compare their economic and ecological performances. The results show that HCDS enhances economic benefits, with an annualized cost of 66.1 million CNY, which is 11% lower than HSDS. Additionally, HCDS is sensitive to electricity prices and grid carbon emission factor. In contrast, HSDS offers superior ecological benefits, with an annualized carbon footprint of 31,300 tons of CO₂, which is 12% lower than HCDS, and is mainly sensitive to purchase prices and emission factors of electricity and hydrogen. This study provides critical insights into the trade-offs between economic and ecological performance under different hydrogen utilization strategies, offering practical guidance for implementing hydrogen energy system applications in ports.
This case note analyses the marine environmental protection issues that arose in the 2016 South China Sea arbitration. Given that the South China Sea includes highly productive fisheries and extensive coral reef ecosystems, the alleged breach of environmental obligations under the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea was important in this arbitration. The Arbitral Tribunal examined three obligations concerning marine environmental protection under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: the obligation of due diligence; the obligation to conduct an environmental impact assessment; and the obligation to cooperate. The Tribunal's arbitral award contributes to the clarification of the interpretation of relevant provisions concerning marine environmental protection under the Convention. Furthermore, a remarkable feature of the arbitration was that the Tribunal appointed experts to have an independent opinion with regard to environmental damages arising from China's activities in the South China Sea. The use of experts in the South China Sea arbitration is worth noting, since scientific evidence is of particular importance in the settlement of international environmental disputes.
The purpose of this paper is to revisit speed optimization and speed reduction models for liner shipping in a multi/flexible fuel context with regards to the current ongoing speed limit debate at the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The focus is mainly on analyzing the influence of a maximum average speed limit on the optimal speeds, carbon intensity and emissions in conjunction with fleet deployment for dual fuel (DF) Neopanamax container vessels utilizing liquefied natural gas (LNG).
This paper advances the conceptual understanding of strategies of port development companies (PDCs) through applying the business ecosystem perspective. This leads to a distinction between four stylized strategies for PDCs and associated types of services: minimalist (six services), integrator (six services) and ecosystem services (six services). An analysis of the services provided by a PDC reveals which strategy they follow. This approach is tested through a case study of Port of Rotterdam Authority (PoR for short) the state-owned PDC in charge of developing Rotterdam's port complex. This case study yields three important conclusions: first the relevance of the identified service types is confirmed, as PoR is or has been active in providing 15 of the 18 identified service types, more specifically all six ‘minimalist services’, all six ‘ecosystem services’ and three of the six ‘integrator services’. Second, PoR follows a ‘platform provider’ strategy. Third, the provision of ‘ecosystem services’ seems to become a more important part of PoRs activities. The number of provided ecosystem services has grown between 2006 and 2021 and investments in ecosystem services account for an increasing share of PoRs total investments. These results provide a basis for further research, amongst others to better understand factors that may influence the strategies of PDCs.
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 multi-commodity network flow problem is an important sub-problem in several heuristics and exact methods for designing route networks for container ships. The sub-problem decides how cargoes should be transported through the network provided by shipping routes. This paper studies the multi-commodity network flow problem with transit time constraints which puts limits on the duration of the transit of the commodities through the network. It is shown that for the particular application it does not increase the solution time to include the transit time constraints and that including the transit time is essential to offer customers a competitive product.
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.