Maritime Safety and Environment Protection in the EU; Port State Control Inspections Cover Image

Maritime Safety and Environment Protection in the EU; Port State Control Inspections
Maritime Safety and Environment Protection in the EU; Port State Control Inspections

Author(s): Hamed Alavi
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Energy and Environmental Studies, EU-Legislation
Published by: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci
Keywords: The European Union; Maritime Safety; Environmental Protection; Port State Control; Inspection tools;

Summary/Abstract: Europe is the green continent surrounded by water. Sea has always played an important role in connecting Europe to the rest of the world. After the dawn of 21th Century and further globalization of trade dependency of Europeans to inland waterways and international ports is growing more than ever. High level of seaborne economic activities at the EU is a good indicator for wealth and number of lives floating at any given moment and raises concerns regarding safety measures taken by Member States and the Union in order to minimise perils of sea for involved stakeholders. The EU enjoys establishment of strong regulatory framework in the area of maritime industry. However, no regularity system would be implemented effectively without existence of monitoring and compliance systems. Importance of access to monitoring and compliance system is much more evident in maritime industry due to its international nature, multiplicity of jurisdiction, dealing with long distance trips and difficulties on the way of inspections in international waters. There is no doubt that monitoring compliance at level of the EU ports is a huge challenge. However, use of effective monitoring and enforcement systems can be among the choices of authorities for the purpose of ensuring compliance of maritime industry with safety regulations. Therefore, paper tries to answer the question of what is the legal basis for monitoring and enforcement of compliance of ships during port state controls at the EU level and what are the tools used for this purpose? Towards achieving its gaol, paper continues with providing a short overview on EMSA in second chapter. Third part will discuss Port State Control System and it Legal framework in the EU. Forth part explains the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control while fifth part describes THETIS system as the operational arm used for enforcement of maritime regulations by EU authorities. At the end, final part will provide concluding remarks on the subject matter.

  • Issue Year: 3/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 200-208
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English