218
A . NELSON-YMITII
consumption. Thus not only was there a great increase in the seatransport of oil ; there was a basic change in its nature. Large tankers
entering European waters now carry crude oil, while refined products
(whose spillage creates less of a pollution problem) are carried overland
or in small coastal tankers.
Recent governmental efforts to control oil pollution of the sea have
been reviewed in a US. State Deyt. Report (1959) and by BarclaySmith (1958, 1967). Various meetings of naturalists and wildfowlers in
1952 were followed by the appointment of the Faulkner Committee,
which reported the next year (Ministry of Transport, 1953). I n 1954
an international conference in London drew up a Convention which,
like that of 1935, prohibited the discharge of oil within specified coastal
zones. The United Kingdom was the first to ratify the Convention,
passing the Oil in Navigable Waters Act of 1955; by 1958, having been
ratified by ten nations, the Convention came into force. Its administration passed to the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative
Organization (IMCO) when that body was formed by the United
Nations in 1959. The United States ratified the Convention in 1961,
after a further international conference in Copenhagen.
Amendments to the 1958 Convention extending the prohibited
zones (to include, for example, the entire Baltic and North Seas) and
regulating further classes of vessel were proposed at an IMCO conference
in 1962 and eventually came into force in 1967 (IMCO, 1962, 1967) ; but
by this time " Torrey Canyon " had been stranded off the coast of
Cornwall, bringing to a head the apprehension felt in many quarters
about the operation of increasingly large tankers. Proposals discussed
at subsequent IMCO meetings include regulations governing the construction, navigation and routeing of tankers as well as measures
directly concerned with pollution prevention and control (Goad, 1968).
Legal problems arising from the " Torrey Canyon " incident, summarized by Marshall (1967; see also Edwards, 1968) were discussed at,
an International Legal Conference on Marine Pollution Damage convened by IMCO in Brussels during November 1969. Procedures were
laid down by which a coastal nation might act if a casualty on the high
seas threatened to cause severe pollution. A Convention was drafted
placing strict liability for compensation upon the owners of an oilcarrying ship from which the cargo escapes or is discharged. As an
interim arrangement, nearly 60% of the world tanker fleet had already
subscribed to the TOVALOP plan, which from October 1969 provided
for much of the cost of cleaning up an oil spill to be covered by the
owners, encouraging them to take quick action in minimizing the
resultant damage.
A . NELSON-YMITII
consumption. Thus not only was there a great increase in the seatransport of oil ; there was a basic change in its nature. Large tankers
entering European waters now carry crude oil, while refined products
(whose spillage creates less of a pollution problem) are carried overland
or in small coastal tankers.
Recent governmental efforts to control oil pollution of the sea have
been reviewed in a US. State Deyt. Report (1959) and by BarclaySmith (1958, 1967). Various meetings of naturalists and wildfowlers in
1952 were followed by the appointment of the Faulkner Committee,
which reported the next year (Ministry of Transport, 1953). I n 1954
an international conference in London drew up a Convention which,
like that of 1935, prohibited the discharge of oil within specified coastal
zones. The United Kingdom was the first to ratify the Convention,
passing the Oil in Navigable Waters Act of 1955; by 1958, having been
ratified by ten nations, the Convention came into force. Its administration passed to the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative
Organization (IMCO) when that body was formed by the United
Nations in 1959. The United States ratified the Convention in 1961,
after a further international conference in Copenhagen.
Amendments to the 1958 Convention extending the prohibited
zones (to include, for example, the entire Baltic and North Seas) and
regulating further classes of vessel were proposed at an IMCO conference
in 1962 and eventually came into force in 1967 (IMCO, 1962, 1967) ; but
by this time " Torrey Canyon " had been stranded off the coast of
Cornwall, bringing to a head the apprehension felt in many quarters
about the operation of increasingly large tankers. Proposals discussed
at subsequent IMCO meetings include regulations governing the construction, navigation and routeing of tankers as well as measures
directly concerned with pollution prevention and control (Goad, 1968).
Legal problems arising from the " Torrey Canyon " incident, summarized by Marshall (1967; see also Edwards, 1968) were discussed at,
an International Legal Conference on Marine Pollution Damage convened by IMCO in Brussels during November 1969. Procedures were
laid down by which a coastal nation might act if a casualty on the high
seas threatened to cause severe pollution. A Convention was drafted
placing strict liability for compensation upon the owners of an oilcarrying ship from which the cargo escapes or is discharged. As an
interim arrangement, nearly 60% of the world tanker fleet had already
subscribed to the TOVALOP plan, which from October 1969 provided
for much of the cost of cleaning up an oil spill to be covered by the
owners, encouraging them to take quick action in minimizing the
resultant damage.