Branches of international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 145

in the Gulf of Mexico as well, as it does not limit the protective measures to
transboundary pollution at sea. (The USA is not a party to the UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea but does accept almost all its rules as binding customary
law - including Part XII.)
Article 208 further obligates the parties to take the necessary measures to pre-
vent, reduce and control pollution arising from oil rigs, and requires the national
laws and measures to be no less effective than international rules, standards and
recommended procedures.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) does have a guideline for
such cases, but it is not legally binding.
The UNCLOS provisions give general legal guidance to coastal states, but
if it is to affect the detailed administration of oil rigs, it is clear that states will
have to negotiate more specifi c rules. After the disaster in the Gulf of
Mexico, there were even suggestions that a global convention on oil rigs
should be negotiated, but as yet no concrete developments in this direction
have taken place.
The UNCLOS also regulates how marine environmental rules are to be
implemented. The fl ag state of a vessel still has the primary responsibility,
although the Convention increased the rights of intervention of coastal and
port states in cases when the fl ag state does not take measures. However, one
problem with the law of the sea is the existence of 'fl ag of convenience' states,
which are paid good money to register vessels and fail to control the obser-
vance of international rules.
The UNCLOS also increased the jurisdiction of port states in monitoring
and preventing contamination by vessels. This is a good move from the
viewpoint of controlling and mitigating vessel pollution, since vessels enter
a port within the sovereign territory of a state voluntarily. The jurisdiction of
a port state to prevent pollution from vessels is increased by international regu-
lation, such as port state memoranda of understanding which allow for more
intense cooperation by port authorities - in the EU, for example, the entry of
defi cient tankers is limited. The jurisdiction of a port state could, in fact,
resolve the problem entirely: if all port states were prepared to prevent
defi cient vessels from entering their ports (except for emergencies), they
would not be able to sail. As yet, however, we have not come this far.
Regional protection of the marine environment: the Baltic Sea regime
as an example
While the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was being negotiated
between 1973 and 1982, a number of other regional agreements were also
agreed in order to protect the marine environment (for example, the 1974
Baltic Sea Convention and the 1976 Mediterranean Sea Convention); these