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When world leaders met at the Johannesburg Summit 2002 – the United Nations’ World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) – the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) was there to report on its role in the integration of environment, development and policy making as part of its work in achieving maritime safety and the prevention of marine pollution by ships.
At the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, also known as the 1992 Earth Summit, IMO was able to report significant progress on many issues relating to the environment and sustainable development. There remained much to be done, however, and Agenda 21, a global plan of action for sustainable development adopted by the Rio Conference, gave fresh impetus to IMO’s activities in the maritime sector, especially in the area of prevention and control of marine pollution from ships. Some of the major achievements of IMO since 1992 in the context of Agenda 21 are outlined in this article.
In 1997, IMO adopted a Protocol to amend MARPOL 73/78, adding a new Annex VI to the Convention entitled ‘Regulations for the Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships’. The adoption of the Protocol is being followed up by further discussion on climate change gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), with the aim of developing technical measures to reduce their emissions.
Discussions on air pollution from ships had actually begun at IMO in the late 1980s and the adoption of the Protocol marked the completion of several years of preparatory work. When it comes into force, MARPOL Annex VI will set limits on sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from ship exhausts and prohibit deliberate emissions of ozone depleting substances. It has been ratified by five States as at 31 May 2002.
IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) has established an action program to facilitate its entry into force including development of relevant implementation guidelines. An IMO climate gas study has been completed and the Organization decided in May 2000 to prohibit the use of perfluoro carbons (PFCs) onboard ships. PFCs have extremely long atmospheric lifetimes (in excess of 5000 years) and possess high global warming potential.
Ships’ ballast water may contain harmful aquatic organisms which may settle as ‘harmful alien species’ in new regions of the world, causing tremendous damage, either economically or in regard to the original biodiversity. IMO has adopted guidelines and conducted technical cooperation projects, to minimize the adverse effects of the introduction of harmful aquatic organisms through ships’ ballast water. Since 1994, the MEPC has been developing mandatory regulations for the control and management of ships’ ballast water and sediments. A Diplomatic Conference to adopt an international instrument is tentatively planned for late 2003.
The concept of the ‘special area’ was introduced by IMO in 1973 under MARPOL Annexes I, II and V in order to provide additional mandatory measures for preventing marine pollution from ships in those areas. For example, under MARPOL Annex I, any discharge into the sea of oily mixture from ships shall be prohibited while in a ‘special area’ unless a number of stringent conditions are met. The International Conference on Tanker Safety and Pollution Prevention (TSPP), convened by IMO in 1978, introduced the concept of ‘particularly sensitive sea areas’ (PSSAs). PSSAs are areas deemed in special need of protection against marine pollution from shipping and dumping on account of the particular sensitivity of the areas in respect of their renewable resources.
There are currently four designated PSSAs: The Great Barrier Reef, Australia, was the first area to be designated a PSSA in 1990; Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago in Cuba was designated a PSSA in September 1997. Malpelo Island, Colombia and Around Florida Keys, United States, were designated in 2002. New guidelines for the identification and designation of ‘special areas’ and ‘particularly sensitive sea areas’ were adopted by IMO’s 22nd Assembly in November 2001.
Agenda 21 invited States to consider ratifying the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation (OPRC Convention), which was adopted by IMO in 1990 in response to the necessity of preventing and minimizing enormous environmental consequences caused by major tanker accidents. It also invited IMO to consider possible extension of the OPRC Convention to cover chemical spill response. As a result, the 1990 OPRC Convention entered into force in 1995 and a protocol to extend the Convention to cover hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) – chemicals – was adopted in 2000.
The International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea (HNS Convention) was adopted in 1996 and IMO’s Legal Committee has been working to accelerate its entry into force. The Convention will make it possible for up to 250 million SDR (about US$320 million) to be paid out in compensation to victims of accidents involving HNS. The HNS Convention has been ratified by two States as at 31 May 2002.
The Code for the Safe Carriage of Irradiated Nuclear Fuel, Plutonium and High-Level Radioactive Wastes in Flasks on Board Ships (the INF Code) was adopted in 1993, and amendments to chapter VII of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974, to make the Code mandatory were adopted in 1999. These amendments entered into force on 1 January 2001.
The INF Code stipulates that all ships carrying INF materials, regardless of size, should comply with relevant requirements concerning damage stability, fire protection, temperature control of cargo spaces, structural considerations, cargo securing arrangements, electric supplies, radiological protection equipment and management, training and shipboard emergency plan. This is the first international code prescribing such requirements.
While the primary responsibility for implementing the regulations provided for in IMO conventions rests with the flag State, IMO also acknowledges the role of Port State Control (PSC) in promoting more effective implementation of all applicable standards for maritime safety and pollution prevention. Experience has shown that Port State Control can be extremely effective, especially if organized on a regional basis. Eight regional Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) on port State control have been established, which have become effective tools to promote the implementation of IMO’s treaty instruments on maritime safety and prevention of marine pollution.
The MOUs now cover most of the world’s oceans: Europe and the North Atlantic (Paris MOU, established 1982); Latin America (Acuerdo de Viña del Mar, 1992); Asia and the Pacific (Tokyo MOU, 1993); Caribbean (Caribbean MOU, 1996); the Mediterranean (Mediterranean MOU, 1997); the Indian Ocean (Indian Ocean MOU, 1998); West and Central Africa (Abuja MOU, 1999); and the Black Sea region (Black Sea MOU, 2000).
Navigational safety and management of international straits
Agenda 21 requested IMO to promote navigational safety by adequate charting of coasts and ship routeing as appropriate, and to address the matter of heavily used international straits with a view to ensuring compliance with generally accepted international regulations.
The first ships’ routeing system (traffic separation scheme – TSS) was established in the Dover Strait, United Kingdom, in 1967 and IMO made observance of such schemes mandatory in 1971. IMO’s responsibility for ships’ routeing is enshrined in SOLAS Chapter V, which recognizes the Organization as the only international body for establishing such systems. Several schemes including TSS, mandatory reporting systems, etc, have been adopted around the world over the years and since UNCED 1992, more measures have been taken with a view to enhancing maritime safety and preventing marine pollution. These include the adoption of new and amended traffic separation schemes, areas to be avoided, rules for navigating through the Straits of Malacca and Singapore and a partial system of archipelagic sea lanes in Indonesian archipelagic waters.
A number of mandatory ship reporting systems have also been adopted since 1992, including in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, the Torres Strait and the Inner Route of the Great Barrier Reef and the Systems for protecting North Atlantic right whales in sea areas off the north-eastern and south-eastern coasts of the United States.
Agenda 21 invited States and IMO to assess the need for additional measures to address degradation of the marine environment by establishing port reception facilities for the collection of oil and chemical residues and garbage from ships, especially in MARPOL 73/78 ‘special areas’. MARPOL 73/78 sets out requirements for port reception facilities and all Parties to the Convention are obliged to provide reception facilities for ships calling at their ports. The requirement is especially necessary in ‘special areas’ because of the vulnerability of these areas to pollution. The responsibility for providing reception facilities is a matter for individual Governments, and progress in this regard has not been satisfactory.
To help the situation, IMO published the Comprehensive Manual on Port Reception Facilities in 1999, and Guidelines to Ensure the Adequacy of Reception Facilities in 2000. IMO has also organized an extensive program of national and regional workshops in Asia, India and other countries.
Anti-fouling paints are used to coat the bottoms of ships to prevent sea life from attaching itself to the hull, thereby maintaining the economic speed of ships. The harmful effects of anti-fouling paints using tributyl tin (TBT) were first brought to the attention of IMO in 1988. By that time there was evidence that TBT compounds in anti-fouling paints for ships can pose substantial risk of toxicity and other chronic impacts to ecologically and economically important marine organisms, especially in coastal waters. A number of countries began to adopt measures at national or regional levels to control the use of TBT compounds in anti-fouling paints.
IMO’s MEPC worked on the issue through the 1990s, eventually developing mandatory regulations to control harmful anti-fouling systems used on ships. In October 2001, IMO adopted the International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems on Ships, which will, when it enters into force, prohibit the use of harmful organotins in anti-fouling paints used on ships and will establish a mechanism to prevent the potential future use of other harmful substances in anti-fouling systems.
Annex I of the Convention states that by an effective date of 1 January 2003, all ships shall not apply or re-apply organotins compounds which act as biocides in anti-fouling systems. By 1 January 2008 (effective date), ships either:
shall not bear such compounds on their hulls or external parts or surfaces; or
shall bear a coating that forms a barrier to such compounds leaching from the underlying non-compliant anti-fouling systems.
In 1997, IMO adopted a new SOLAS chapter XII on Additional Safety Measures for Bulk carriers, as well as amendments to the enhanced program of inspections for tankers and bulk carriers (resolution A.744(18) as amended). These measures are intended to reduce accidents and pollution. In April 2001, IMO adopted a revised global timetable for accelerating the phase-out of single-hull oil tankers, intended to have a major impact in minimizing pollution by oil tankers. Single-hull tankers will be scrapped several years earlier than previously required and the phase-out years for single-hull oil tankers terminate at 2015. Tankers complying with relevant requirements of the revised regulation 13G of MARPOL Annex I may be allowed to continue operation until their anniversary date in 2017 or they reach 25 years of age, whichever is the earlier date.
Ships sold for recycling (scrapping) may contain environmentally hazardous substances such as asbestos, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and ozone-depleting substances and others. Concerns have been raised about the working and environmental conditions at many of the world’s ship scrapping locations. IMO is now working on developing international guidance to ensure safer and more environmentally friendly procedures and methods for recycling of ships. IMO is acting as lead agency in co-operation with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Basel Convention (on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal) in recycling matters.
IMO’s role in the recycling of ships, the terminology used to refer to ship scrapping, was first raised at the 44th MEPC session in March 2000. The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), established at UNCED 1992, requested IMO to look into the issue of ship recycling.
IMO is assisting in the development of measures to reduce illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing in a joint effort with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), at the request of the CSD. The issue of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in world fisheries is of serious and increasing concern. IMO’s Sub-Committee on Stability and Load Lines and on Fishing Vessels Safety (SLF) which deals with technical aspects relating to fishing vessels and fishermen safety, is currently revising the fishing vessels safety Code and voluntary Guidelines and IMO is promoting and encouraging the implementation and entry into force of the 1993 Torremolinos Protocol to the Torremolinos International Convention for the Safety of Fishing Vessels (SFV), 1977 and the 1995 International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Fishing Vessel Personnel (STCW-F) Convention.
In March 2001, IMO adopted the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage, which provides for a strict liability and compensation regime for pollution damage from ships’ bunkers (fuel) including the cost of preventive measures, and for compulsory insurance or financial security.
IMO is developing an instrument to secure environmentally sound management and adequate compensation regarding shipwrecks. The aim is to hold an international Diplomatic Conference to conclude an instrument in 2003.
As at August 2001, 35 out of 42 treaty instruments for which IMO is responsible were in force. The most important treaty instruments relating to maritime safety and prevention of marine pollution, such as SOLAS and MARPOL, have been ratified by over 100 States representing more than 90 per cent of the world’s total tonnage.
Two developments since UNCED 92 which are directly aimed at improving effective implementation of existing rules and regulations are: the introduction of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code (focusing on the shipowner’s management responsibilities regarding marine safety and environmental legislation); and the development of the Flag State Self-Assessment Form first adopted by the IMO Assembly in 1999 and revised in 2001. The form establishes a uniform set of internal and external criteria which can be used by flag States on a voluntary basis to obtain a clear picture of how well their maritime administrations are functioning and to make their own assessment of their performance as flag States.
Courtesy IMO Newsroom
The discovery of 160-old records in the archives of the Royal Society, London, has helped British and Australian scientists secure further evidence that Australian sea levels are rising. The study, published in the International Hydrological Review, compares records taken at the Port Arthur convict settlement 160 years ago by an amateur meteorologist with those taken by modern tide gauge during the past three years.
‘We have established a rate of sea level rise of about 1mm a year that is consistent with other Australian observations,’ says Dr David Pugh, from the UK’s Southampton Oceanography Centre. ‘This is an important result for the Southern Hemisphere, and especially for Australia, providing a benchmark against which Australian regional sea level can be measured in 10, 50 or 100 years time,’ says Dr Pugh, an internationally-recognised tidal expert. Working with Dr Pugh were the University of Tasmania’s Dr John Hunter, Dr Richard Coleman and Mr Chris Watson.
In 1837, a rudimentary tide gauge was made by the amateur meteorologist, Thomas Lempriere and probably installed in the nearby Port Arthur settlement. The benchmark, in the form of a broad arrow, was cut in 1841 into a vertical rock face on the sheltered north of Isle of the Dead, which was used as a cemetery for the Port Arthur complex. It was one of the earliest benchmarks cut in the world, and is thought to be the first in the Southern Hemisphere. Others were cut in Sweden and the Caspian Sea, following a request to the Royal Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg in 1830. The discovery of two full years of carefully recorded measurements (1841 and 1842) of average sea level was only the start of a scientific trail through early European history in Tasmania.
Initiated in 1995 by Dr Pugh, the hunt for the original observations in archival records and a subsequent verification of sea level rise today brought to life the heroes of Arctic and Antarctic polar exploration Sir James Clark Ross and Sir John Franklin, the storekeeper-turned-part-time scientist and meteorologist Lempriere, the German geophysicist Baron Von Humboldt, a Royal Navy master Captain Shortt and former CSIRO oceanographer Dr Bruce Hamon.
Dr Hamon, researching the benchmark in 1985, spoke with descendants of Lempriere ‘who passed on to me the family story that many of T.J.L.’s papers were burned late last century by one of the family, who did not want others to pry into them. He wrote:
‘It seems unlikely that interpretation of the benchmark in terms of mean sea level change can be improved enough to make its re-discovery of real scientific value. The position of course would be different if Lempriere’s original observations ever came to light.’
In addition to discovering the ‘lost’ files, the project involved –
Analysis of 19th Century sea level data
Installing a modern tide gauge similar to those now used all over the world to measure sea level rise
20th Century measurements and analysis
Site surveying using GPS (global positioning system) and modern surveying techniques
Assessing the vertical motion of the land surface at Port Arthur using geological evidence from a shell bed at Mary Anne Bay, 42 km from Port Arthur and dated to 125,000 years ago.
Modelling of the response of the earth since the end of the last glaciation about 6,000 years ago.
Dr John Hunter said that scientific and popular interest in possible rises of global sea level, with attendant increased risks of coastal flooding have emphasised the need for a long time series of sea level measurements. He said:
Unfortunately, few records exist from the nineteenth century, and even fewer have well documented benchmark information against which changes can be monitored. At Port Arthur we have a unique series of sea level measurements. Our research during this project has shown that the work of John Franklin, James Clark Ross and Thomas Lempriere generated a significant benchmark long before any effect of global warming was apparent. The scientific interest at the time was the question of vertical motion or uplifting of the continents rather than changes in volume of the oceans. Our observations are consistent with the lower end of estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and with records from Fremantle and Fort Denison.
Measurements have been taken at Fremantle for 91 years and at Fort Denison, Sydney for 82 years.
The project was funded by the Southampton Oceanography Centre, CSIRO, the University of Canberra and the University of Tasmania.
Additional information: Dr John Hunter, University of Tasmania (03) 6226 2999, Dr Donna Roberts (03) 6226 2265 or Craig Macaulay on 0419 966 465.
Courtesy CSIRO Marine (www.marine.csiro.au)
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MarStudies/2002/26.html