Legal Challenges in Regulating Marine Pollution under MARPOL: A Critical Analysis

Marine pollution has become one of the most important environmental issues of the contemporary world that is largely predetermined by the rapid growth of the global maritime trade and the increasing industrial dependency on the transport systems that are based in the ocean. As a reaction to the increasing menace of pollution caused by vessels, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) embraced the International Convention on the Prevention of Pollution by Ships (MARPOL 73/78), which is widely recognised as the foundation of international maritime environmental regulation. Although MARPOL has a comprehensive structure and is globally accepted, MARPOL still experiences significant legal, institutional and operational challenges that restrict its overall effectiveness. This dissertation critically examines the legal issues in the regulation of marine pollution under MARPOL and in particular its enforcement mechanisms, jurisdictional limits and the existing gaps in contemporary regulation. The paper discusses the structural design of the MARPOL which is founded on six technical annexes with regard to the different categories of marine pollution, and evaluates the effectiveness of the dual enforcement regime which is built on the foundation of flag state responsibility and port state control. Although MARPOL has helped significantly in minimising intentional marine pollution and standardisation of environmental norms in ship operations, its dependence on state-based enforcement creates discrepancies in its implementation. One important conclusion of this study is that the concept of flag state jurisdiction is highly diluted due to the extensive use of flags of convenience that allows them to avoid regulations and prevents a consistent pattern of compliance. On the same note, port state control, despite being a significant enforcement mechanism, has limitations due to limited inspection capacity, resource imbalance and inconsistency in its application across jurisdictions. Lack of a centralised enforcement authority also contributes to these issues, creating a fragmented global enforcement.