Is a Stringent National Regime (OPA 90) More Effective than an International Regime (MARPOL) in the Bid to Control Marine Pollution?

1. Is a Stringent National Regime
(OPA 90) More Effective than an
International Regime (MARPOL)
in the Bid to Control Marine
Pollution?
Abstract
LLM in Maritime Law Dissertation
Vijay Hiranandani
London Metropolitan University

2. Shipping is a global industry vital to global
economy with 85% of world trade in terms of
weight being transported by sea. Modern times
focus on globalization, technological change and
environmental concerns.
Transporting goods by sea creates marine
pollution by introduction of substances in
marine environment directly or indirectly by
man. This causes hazards to marine
environment, human health, marine activities,
and harms the quality of seawater.

3. The increasing marine trade of oil and hazardous
substances threatens marine environment, with
oil pollution having the highest public profile.
Environmental damage from marine pollution
causes economic losses due to compensation to
claimants of marine casualty causing or
threatening environmental pollution.

4. These factors led to development of various national
and international regimes to control marine pollution.
This paper focused mainly on two such regimes –
MARPOL & OPA.
MARPOL deals with marine pollution from various
harmful substances in international seas while OPA
deals with claims for oil-spill incidents impacting or
substantially threatening U.S. navigable waters.
OPA imposes higher limits of liability and heavier
fines for environmental damage. OPA’s logic is that
even minor oil spills can significantly damage marine
ecology with its chain reactions.

5. Researching from various stakeholder perspectives illuminated
OPA to be more effective than MARPOL in controlling marine
pollution. Both regimes portray many good and difficult
issues.
A critical synopsis from different sources of information
revealed that overall OPA has been more effective, by virtue of
its stringency. However, some of OPA’s aspects, such as strict
liability and criminal prosecution of seafarers, have been
criticized heavily and need to be reviewed and improved.
Yet, OPA provides better protection for the marine
environment by necessitating and enforcing compliance with
its provisions in order to allow tanker-trade within U.S.
waters.

6. Industrialists and businesses are bound to oppose OPA’s
stringency. For instance, when people comply with the law in
good faith, the threat of strict liability is unlikely to elicit
improved performance.
However, such universal compliance may seem to happen only
in the ideal instead of the real world situations. Therefore, if
strict liability is imposed, it may not necessarily harm those
complying, but could help improve compliance from those
attempting to evade the law.
This calls for a balanced care from the judicial system so that
those who comply with the law in good faith should find
compliance worthwhile without being let down.

7. Objectively, from the marine pollution
perspective, OPA’s designers have been more or less
on the right track. Apart from its detrimental effects to
trade and commerce due to some of its
provisions, OPA’s beneficial efforts to protect the
environment and related human-health factors should
also be looked at.
It is high time businesses and industries realize that
temporary monetary gains at the expense of harming
our environment is an insensible option for it bounces
back on humankind somewhere or the other. Lack of
care or harm to our environment will only make our
world a worse place to live in for ourselves and our

8. To a certain extent, there has been a lack of
international will to implement MARPOL. Thus, it is
imperative that the international community should
strive hard to implement MARPOL more effectively
and grasp OPA’s finer points to protect the worldwide
marine environment in areas of its jurisdiction.
It takes a long time to build a good environment that
will shower its benefits on humankind. However, it
may take only a few seconds during maritime spill
disasters to create havoc in marine biodiversity and
related chain effects to human health, apart from
economic and livelihood losses to local communities.

9. Even from a purely economic point of view, critics should
note that preventing marine pollution is beneficial for overall
good instead of being careless, negligent, eluding
compliance, or intentionally harming the marine environment.
Just as we cannot throw our trash into other people’s
homes, ships should not be allowed to pollute local or
international marine waters and harm others’ local
livelihoods, health and marine biodiversity.
These factors necessitate the careful protection of the marine
environment. The research concluded that overall a stringent
national regime such as the well enforced OPA has been more
effective in controlling marine pollution than the not-so-well
enforced MARPOL.