Shipping: Vessel-source pollution

This chapter focuses on the international law that has been developed at the global and regional levels for the purpose of the prevention, control and reduction of (further: combating) pollution of the marine environment by merchant ships (further: vessel-source pollution). The development of this body of law has to a large extent been brought about by shipping incidents. Whereas the sinking of the RMS Titanic south of Newfoundland, in 1912, triggered the international regulation of merchant shipping for the purpose of maritime safety – culminating in the adoption of the first SOLAS Convention1 in 1914 – international regulation for the purpose of combating vessel-source pollution only seriously commenced following the Torrey Canyon’s shipwreck off Cornwall in 1967. OILPOL 542 had already been in force for almost a decade by then, but its regulations were widely acknowledged to be inadequate in light of the threats posed by the increasingly larger volumes of oil then transported by increasingly larger oil tankers.