International Law and Regulations on Ocean Pollution
November 2021 | Maryam Raja, Staff Writer/Editor
It is no secret that ocean pollution is worsening and causing detrimental issues around the world, both environmentally and economically. According to Dr. Philip Landrigan, the director of Boston College’s Global Public Health and the Common Good Program, “people have heard about plastic pollution in the oceans, but that is only part of it. Research shows the oceans are being fouled by a complex stew of toxins including mercury, pesticides, industrial chemicals, petroleum wastes, agricultural runoff, and manufactured chemicals embedded in plastic.”[1] This raises the question: if oil pollution is so harmful, what types of legal measurements are in place to protect the environment? In an attempt to tackle ocean pollution, there have been different international regulations set in place by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prevent the irresponsible discarding of waste into oceans. However, there remain gaps in these regulations, which allow continued damage to the ocean at the hands of major oil companies and national governments.
One of the most notorious oil pollution events, which sparked the conversation on preventing ocean pollution, did not occur too long ago. In the Exxon Valdez accident of 1989, an oil tanker ruptured, spilling about 11 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Alaska. This disaster was the first large-scale oil spill, causing catastrophic damage on a global level. At the time, there was no “comprehensive federal legislation to determine the scope of liability for costs of cleanup and restoration.”[2] Consequently, this prompted the US government to implement stricter oil spill regulations to prevent future spills. The corporation Exxon, which is now estimated to be valued at $380 billion dollars, was only penalized “$2 billion in cleanup costs and $1.8 billion for habitat restoration and personal damages related to the spill.”[3] While the penalty cannot fully reverse the damage sustained to the environment, it did pave the way for the Oil Pollution Act (OPA). The OPA was enacted in hopes of imposing penalties and to help aid the cleanup of future oil spills. This act has been used to hold polluters accountable for depositing hazardous materials into the ocean. The NOAA, which is an organization that protects the ocean by creating damage assessments and restoration programs, believes that the OPA has been successful in fulfilling its mission.[4] The penalties the OPA impose aim to prevent future oil spills by oil corporations.[5]
Although it is a step in the right direction, charging fines cannot guarantee future spills from occurring. For example, a less advertised consequence of Hurricane Katrina was the amount of oil spilled. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), which oversees oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, reported that “more than 400 pipelines and 100 drilling platforms were damaged” because of the hurricane.[6] However, corporations only pay fines when given a comprehensive report that shows how much damage has occurred. That being said, “not one assessment of the damage to natural resources after the two 2005 hurricanes has been completed.”[7] As expected, this has resulted in “none of the 140 parties thought to be responsible for the spills [being] fined or cited for environmental violations.”[8] Since the extent of the damage done to the environment is unknown, paying the fines to offset some of the damage does not properly hold the corporations accountable.
While it is clear that corporations have dodged accountability in regards to oil pollution, can the same be said about national governments? In 2015, the Canadian government was caught dumping hazardous waste in oceans.[9] As a result, the Basel Convention took place, which is a convention held between countries to control the movement of dangerous waste. There, the member states expressed their goal “to protect human health and the environment against adverse effects from the generation… seek[ing] to minimize the generation of hazardous waste, including hazardous recyclable materials, to ensure they are disposed of in an environmentally sound manner and as close as possible to the source.”[10] Rather than focusing on consequences, the outcome of this convention concentrated on managing and reducing waste.[11] Regulations set by international organizations, like UNCLOS, help regulate and define laws on preventing ocean pollution. However, because there are different regulations for each region that is coastal-bound, it is difficult to come to a consensus on regulations for oil transportation. For example, specifications for trading rules in coastal regions allow them to “promulgate and enforce pollution regulations in their own [Exclusive Economic Zones] EEZs which may, in some circumstances, include imposition of routing restrictions.”[12] These regulations protect coastal regions and prevent different countries from impeding on those protections.
Overall, there is only a certain extent to which national organizations with low enforcement power can hold corporations and countries accountable. While there are organizations like UNCLOS and NOAA that have set regulations for proper waste management and ocean pollution prevention, these policies can only go so far. Hosting climate conventions and merely reporting on these issues should not be the only actions taken to tackle ocean pollution. Instead, other measures should be taken, such as standardizing regulations across coastal regions or providing more enforcement power to global organizations like UNCLOS and NOAA. Moreover, there should be more serious penalty fines for corporations and countries who violate international ocean pollution laws. Current penalty fines are not severe enough to deter multi-billion dollar corporations from violating established policies, and they are virtually non-existent for national governments. As such, policies currently in place to regulate ocean pollution should be enforced to a greater degree, especially when countries are caught violating them. By increasing severity of punishments and focusing on prevention of ocean pollution, there will be a more optimistic future for the environment. If the policies in place to protect the ocean are not strengthened and stay continuously undermined, then the ocean will become unsustainable and lead to humanity’s irreversible demise.
Sources
Hayward, “Oceans in peril, humans at risk”. Boston College. December 2020.
“30 Years of the Oil Pollution Act: How It Helps NOAA Prepare for and Recover from Spills | Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program.” NOAA.
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill 2018
“Environmental Law Resources: Environmental Laws and Oil Spills”. Law Info.
US EPA OA. “Summary of the Oil Pollution Act | US EPA.” March 2019.
“How Oil Companies Avoided Environmental Accountability After 10.8 Million Gallons Spilled” ProPublica. December 27, 2019.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Canada, Environment and Climate Change. “Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste: Basel Convention.” February 20, 2015.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“UNCLOS – Basics of United Nation Conferences on the Law of the Sea.” MarinerOnBoard. October 3, 2015.