Maritime Externalities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Maritime Externalities - Essay Example This problem of disposal and dumping of radioactive waste and its adverse effects on our ecology has gained considerable attention in recent years. Marine pollution not only effects and pollutes the environment and beaches, it upholds toxic effects for the marine divers, ecologists and marine wild life. It is true that more than 70% of land is water and how awful is the situation in which the marine pollution rate which is caused by ships and cruises is increasing. This rapid increase is harmful for us in dual ways. On one hand it pollutes the sea and marine life, thereby affecting our health indirectly as the same sea food is consumed by us, on the other hand we are directly affected by the marine wastes and polluted environment caused by sea transport. Offshore Externality: Another negative externality is to the fishing industry, which according to research is affected to an extent that there has been a concern about the impact of 'seismic detonations', which means that on a local scale, eggs and larvae are killed and fish are scared off (Vidas, 2000, p. 132). The onus has been on the shoulders of Norway and Russia, both of which are engaged in drilling offshore petroleum in the Barents Sea, whose part has been explored as an important spawning and growth area for the Arctic cod stock, supplying one of the most valuable commercial fisheries in the world. Any accident involving large scale oil spills would end up in severe environmental effects resulting from sea transport. Of course one cannot predict the probability of such accident but it is presumed to occur at higher temperate zones. Also the regional differences in shipping equipment standards and maritime industrial safety levels indicate that the risk is particularly high i n the Russian part of the Barents Sea. Should an accident occur marine life would suffer utmost from the climate and weather conditions. Pollution: The marine externalities are almost common to every country and state, therefore the law is international which suggests that marine environment in context with the rules on pollution from ships are essentially uniform and international at the global level. For example legal implications require that dumping at sea should be followed by a minimum standard on a global platform, but have been supplemented and strengthened by a number of regional agreements or by national legislation. Despite having same rules to be followed everywhere which is based on airborne sources of marine pollution no efforts have been made at the regional, sub-regional or national level to deal with this problem globally. No significance has been given to the environmental impact assessment which results from the basis of marine pollution. Not even legal monitoring of pollution is observed. What has been done so far in order to regulate marine environment is the regulation of International ship-sourced marine pollution which has acquired at least some attention since the 1950s. In this current era where 70% of our seas are polluted, the marine pollution regulation is still following the 1954 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil. Though the Convention has been designed to combat maritime pollution by prohibiting and limiting the discharge of harmful substances or effluents from ships, but still unimplemented. Being globally accepted and encouraged by marine ecologists, this global application contains