Shipping and the Marine Environment in the 21st Century

Under the 1982 United Nations Convention Law on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), states are obliged ‘to protect and preserve the marine environment’. The statement is very general and is not restricted to the marine environment within national jurisdiction but to the entire marine environment.

UNCLOS 1982 Art 1(1)(4). This is indeed a very wide definition which encompasses noise pollution (which affects mammals) and probably acidification of the oceans by human activities including burning of fossil fuels. But it does not tell us whether the marine environment and its protection refer, in addition to the ocean, to the interlinked and interconnected atmosphere and coastal zone. Probably it does not unless the atmospheric or land based pollution leads to the introduction of a pollutant substance or energy into the ocean causing deleterious effects. Thus, eg, CO2 emissions which cause ocean acidification are probably covered by the definition.