Marine Pollution Shipping Waste And International Law

Waste management poses increasing challenges to both the protection of the environment and to human health. To face these challenges, this book claims that environmental law needs to shift attention from media-specific pollution regimes to integrative life-cycle approaches of waste management i.e., from the prevention of waste generation to the actual handling of wastes. Furthermore, the cooperation of States and the establishment of coordinated activities is essential because states can no longer have separate standards for wastes posing transboundary risks and for ‘purely domestic’ wastes. Drawing upon both International and EU law, the book provides a detailed analysis of the regimes set up to deal with the transboundary movement of wastes and ship-source pollution, so as to elucidate the obligations and legal principles governing such regimes. It concludes that treaty obligations concerning transboundary movements of wastes are inapplicable to ship wastes while on board ships and on land. However, despite the limitations of the transboundary movement of wastes regime, the principle of Environmentally Sound Management (ESM) embodied in this regime has gradually transformed into a legal principle. ESM works to address the legal gaps in the regulation of wastes, and consequently, it provides the desired coherence to the legal system since it acts as a bridge between several regulatory and sectoral levels. Furthermore, ESM offers a new light with which to understand and interpret existing obligations, and it provides a renewed impetus to regimes that directly and indirectly govern wastes. This impetus translates into greater coordination and the establishment of cross-sectional policies. By offering alternative ways to solve problems linked to the management of ship wastes in the sea-land interface, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in International Environmental Law.

The number of global instruments affecting the law of marine environmental protection--both `soft' and `hard' law--grows constantly. Regional organizations have become increasingly concerned with matters affecting traditional freedoms of the seas. As a result, the law in this area has rapidly expanded, often creating competing or conflicting rules. Competing Norms in the Law of Marine Environmental Protection contains edited versions of the papers presented at a conference in the andÅland Islands, Finland, in August 1996, convened by the Department of Law of andÅbo Akademi University, Finland. It provides a detailed examination of current legal issues relating to the variety of rules and rule-makers in the field of marine environmental protection. It then goes further, relating the recent developments to international law in a wider context. The legal regime regulating ship safety and pollution prevention provides an excellent illustration of contemporary trends of international law in general and of the law of the sea and international environmental law in particular.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. The massive accumulation of plastics in marine environments is one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our time. This book examines the relevant international legal framework applying to land-based sources of plastic pollution. Against the backdrop of the dynamics of recent policy formulation in this field, it outlines the main developments and provides a snapshot inventory of state obligations related to plastic pollution mitigation. The Mitigation of Marine Plastic Pollution in International Law identifies the main barriers and opportunities, and points out the possible building blocks of an enhanced regime.

This book examines the corpus of status quo environmental legal regime, geographical issues and redundant “stakeholder claims,” which persist in the Arctic. It examines multifarious theories relating not only to conflicting and opposing interests, but also to parties to whom the shipping industry should be accountable. The unique aspect of this book is the Corporate Social responsibility analysis pertaining to the Arctic and alternatives that strike a balance between the increased commercialization of the shipping industry and the laws and concepts of ocean governance. The book relevantly puts forward the concept of “ocean governance” and to what extent it can be addressed in terms of the Arctic. What distinguishes this book from others is the fact that it is not limited to examining the effects of climate change and how it is reshaping the way scholars assume the Arctic will be in the near future. Rather it creates a transparent nexus between opposing claims and increasing commercial interests and proceeds to scrutinize the efforts of the Arctic Council and individual Arctic coastal states. In this context, the book follows a given equation based on initial theories and how the opposing claims and increasing commercialization side of the equation can be balanced with the appropriate legal norm. It also reflects on the critical aspects of “hard law and soft law” which are two opposite ends of the legal pole and core elements of any legal spectrum. The book, after reflecting on those two elements, finally proposes a new Arctic legal regime, which is intricate and detailed and is basically a hierarchy based on logic and reasoning. In doing so, it imports a pristine theory for a pristine territory.