129
6.3 Marine Environmental Safety Drivers
Probably the most important measure to reduce risks of large-scale accidental oil
spills has been the requirement of double hulls. The double hulls of modern vessels
means that the risk of oil spills are signifi cantly reduced in case of a grounding or
collision. In a 1992 amendment of MARPOL , it was stipulated that no large tankers
(5,000 Deadweight tonnage or more) without double hulls could be ordered after
1993 unless IMO had recognised alternative designs that were deemed to be acceptable from an environmental safety perspective. However, since the conversion of
single-hull tankers is complicated and the expected lifetime of vessels constructed
before 1993 is up to 30 years, a complicated and prolonged phase-out process was
elaborated by IMO. As will be described below, this phase-out process was subsequently speeded up, partly due to some large-scale accidents and partly due to unilateral action on prohibition of single-hull vessels by the USA and later by the EU.
A quite different type of environmental hazard is caused by operators’ cutting
corners. In order to save time and money, operators often get tanks illegally cleaned
and fl ush machine rooms at sea, rather than in port where oily wastes could be taken
care of properly. In some cases, these types of spills might not be intentional in a
strict sense but nevertheless are caused by negligence or improper procedures. The
number of observed illegal spills has been decreasing over the last two decades,
although the number of unrecorded cases is probably substantial. While the number
of fl ight surveillance hours to combat illegal pollution increased during the 1990s
and then levelled off during the 2000s, the number of detected spills declined over
the last 10 years from approximately 500 in the late 1980s to around 130 in the last
couple of years (HELCOM 2014 ). The introduction of satellite monitoring by
EMSA (European Maritime Safety Agency) over the last 5 years has been instrumental in directing aerial and marine surveillance . The long-term ecological effects
of this diffuse form of pollution of the Baltic Sea are not known in detail but could
potentially be substantial.
To understand why some measures to reduce oil spills in the Baltic Sea have been
more successful than others, why some measures are better handled at regional
levels and others through global conventions and why some countries seem to be
more proactive than others, it is important to consider differences in interests and
capabilities (Hassler 2010 ). First, environmental hazards that are global in nature
typically require global conventions, as regulations at regional and subregional levels tend to invite free riding and market distortions where actors act strategically to
avoid costs and reap benefi ts without contributing to the realisation of collective
goods (Keohane 2002 ). For example, as we discuss further below, tanker construction needs to be regulated globally. Although it could be suggested that the Flag
State responsibility ought to be enacted more forcefully as a way to counteract collective action dilemmas, the emergence of open registries has made this very diffi -
cult, if not impossible. On the other hand, measures taken by individual countries to
improve environmental safety that primarily give local effects may escape the
“Tragedy of the commons” (Hardin 1968 ). It has been shown that measures such as
6 Oil Spills from Shipping: A Case Study of the Governance of Accidental Hazards…
6.3 Marine Environmental Safety Drivers
Probably the most important measure to reduce risks of large-scale accidental oil
spills has been the requirement of double hulls. The double hulls of modern vessels
means that the risk of oil spills are signifi cantly reduced in case of a grounding or
collision. In a 1992 amendment of MARPOL , it was stipulated that no large tankers
(5,000 Deadweight tonnage or more) without double hulls could be ordered after
1993 unless IMO had recognised alternative designs that were deemed to be acceptable from an environmental safety perspective. However, since the conversion of
single-hull tankers is complicated and the expected lifetime of vessels constructed
before 1993 is up to 30 years, a complicated and prolonged phase-out process was
elaborated by IMO. As will be described below, this phase-out process was subsequently speeded up, partly due to some large-scale accidents and partly due to unilateral action on prohibition of single-hull vessels by the USA and later by the EU.
A quite different type of environmental hazard is caused by operators’ cutting
corners. In order to save time and money, operators often get tanks illegally cleaned
and fl ush machine rooms at sea, rather than in port where oily wastes could be taken
care of properly. In some cases, these types of spills might not be intentional in a
strict sense but nevertheless are caused by negligence or improper procedures. The
number of observed illegal spills has been decreasing over the last two decades,
although the number of unrecorded cases is probably substantial. While the number
of fl ight surveillance hours to combat illegal pollution increased during the 1990s
and then levelled off during the 2000s, the number of detected spills declined over
the last 10 years from approximately 500 in the late 1980s to around 130 in the last
couple of years (HELCOM 2014 ). The introduction of satellite monitoring by
EMSA (European Maritime Safety Agency) over the last 5 years has been instrumental in directing aerial and marine surveillance . The long-term ecological effects
of this diffuse form of pollution of the Baltic Sea are not known in detail but could
potentially be substantial.
To understand why some measures to reduce oil spills in the Baltic Sea have been
more successful than others, why some measures are better handled at regional
levels and others through global conventions and why some countries seem to be
more proactive than others, it is important to consider differences in interests and
capabilities (Hassler 2010 ). First, environmental hazards that are global in nature
typically require global conventions, as regulations at regional and subregional levels tend to invite free riding and market distortions where actors act strategically to
avoid costs and reap benefi ts without contributing to the realisation of collective
goods (Keohane 2002 ). For example, as we discuss further below, tanker construction needs to be regulated globally. Although it could be suggested that the Flag
State responsibility ought to be enacted more forcefully as a way to counteract collective action dilemmas, the emergence of open registries has made this very diffi -
cult, if not impossible. On the other hand, measures taken by individual countries to
improve environmental safety that primarily give local effects may escape the
“Tragedy of the commons” (Hardin 1968 ). It has been shown that measures such as
6 Oil Spills from Shipping: A Case Study of the Governance of Accidental Hazards…