INTENTIONAL OIL POLLUTION OF THE OCEANS

For most people, oil pollution conjures up images of tanker accidents, such as the wreck of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989. Yet daily intentional discharges by tankers introduce millions of tons of oil residues into the oceans each year. Although control efforts started in 1926, it was not until the early 1980s that the many international conventions and negotiations within the International Maritime Organization began to reduce intentional oil discharges. The conventions succeeded by making agreements easier to keep and by supplementing unenforceable discharge standards with easily verifiable and sanctionable requirements to install specific equipment that reduces the oil residues. Tanker owners have complied with these equipment rules and, as a result, have significantly reduced their discharges, even when they could not expect to recover the loss in capital investment.

The success of equipment standards, however, improved compliance with discharge standards or urged governments to provide receptacles for oil residues. In fact, international efforts did little to increase concern about oil pollution or the capacity of states to enforce or comply with treaty rules. Stronger rules did not occur until the negotiating governments changed their positions: stringent U.S. proposals backed by threats of unilateral action as public environmentalism grew; European state support backed by public concern evoked by several major tanker accidents; and developing country support, out of environmental concern and a desire to enhance their international position. Only this combination of factors allowed governments to overcome the resistance of the oil and shipping industries to the equipment requirements necessary to reduce intentional discharges.