Management And Legal Research Of China’s Ocean Dumping

Ocean dumping is a kind of activity which based on the dumping of waste thatproduced by human material production and social life. It is a rational choice thatconsidering the limitation of the continent space and the capacious of the ocean space.It reflects the environmental benefit of the marine space resource. The marineenvironment pollution that caused by ocean dumping has already raised the focus ofmany costal countries since1950s, thus the ocean dumping management appeared. Inorder to protect the marine environment and prevent people from intentionallydumping toxic waste into the ocean, the British government organized a meetingunder the title of “To prevent the dumping of waste material and its pollution of thesea convention” in November1972, during which the To prevent the dumping ofwastes and other matter pollution of the sea convention(hereafter referred to as TheLondon dumping convention of1972) was passed. Since then, human’s oceandumping management has got the legal regulation at the legal level.Nowadays, The London dumping convention of1972has passed for forty years.It has provided the guarantee on the management system of ocean dumping for thecoastal countries. On the other side, it is too old to meet the need of today’smanagement, a lot of clauses have to be revised. For example, the definition of theocean dumping. Many countries around the world have taken the third rule in TheLondon dumping convention of1972which said “any behavior that intentionallydumping waste or other substance into the ocean from the boat, plane, platform orother manmade structures at sea or behaviors that dumping boat, plane, platform andother manmade structures” all belong to marine dumping. This kind of definitionneglected the result and purpose description, while just limited on the description ofthe dumping manner and meas. The rational grasp on the definition of ocean dumpingshould pay more attention on the result and purpose of ocean dumping. Based on theidea of rational principle on the definition of ocean dumping, the author proposedocean dumping intake the management of discharging pollution into the ocean torealize the holistic management of the marine environment management. This is notonly deeply support by the theoretical basis, but also has its realistic possibility onpractical operation.The purpose of legislation on Ocean Dumping stresses on the view of "dualist"which could both protect the marine environment and promote economic development,which results in the situation that the extremity management is out of control. Basedon the conception of "compulsory departmentalism", we initiate to imply the view of"monism" to the protection of ecological environment, which is not only in line withthe state will of ecological civilization construction, but also conducive to people’ssafety of life and health requirement. To implement this view to the amendment ofOcean Dumping legislation, it should be make clear that which areas must beprohibited from dumping and which areas should limit the quantity of dumping, at the same time, the types of dumping should also be limited strictly. On the managementof Ocean Dumping, our government emphases much on procedural issues, whileignoring the results of management; most of the management methods are extensivenot refine; management tools are too rigid not flexible;the using of incentives isemphasising more on punishment than incentives. In order to achieve the goal ofmanagement effectiveness, the author advocates to establish the operation mechanismof meticulous management of Ocean Dumping. It pays too much attention on thefunction of government unilateral role when choosing the dumping area whileignoring the important function of dumping enterprises, non-governmentalorganizations, and the public played in participation of this activity, so we advocate toestablish a management mode with multi-party taking part in.We adopt acentralization and decentralization of the "sub-system integration" mode in the OceanDumping management system, which causes the fragmented structure in localgovernance and separates the integrity and the external function of ocean. So weadvocate to establish a integration mode of maritime zones dumping management andstrengthen the inter-governmental regional cooperation mechanism.All in all, if there is no suitable management and scientific dumping measures, itwill bring irreversible damage to ocean ecological environment, although it is moreeconomical to dispose of wastes into ocean than on land. This article is based on theperspective of the security of marine ecosystem and the protection of marineenvironment, also adheres to the legislative purpose of "Monism"of ecologicalenvironment protection and the refined mechanism of Ocean Dumping Management;it is not only including the detailed analysis of the Ocean Dumping and the practicemanagement of Ocean Dumping, but also investigating the effective ways of scientific,reasonable and ecological of dumping wastes into ocean.According to the theme, this paper is arranged into the following eight chapters.Firstly, this paper elaborates the origin of Ocean Dumping of China and combings thegeneration and development of Ocean Dumping Management. The history of oceandumping can be divided into three period. It started from1850s, people just dumpednon-toxic wastes, like dredged materials, municipal waste and boat wreckage, into theocean. While after the WWII, large amounts of untreated toxic waste were dumpedinto it. Then after the World conference on environment passed the "Declaration onthe Human Environment", human started to respect the ecological environment, andfinally reached an agreement on the protection of ecological environment. OceanDumping has experienced from low to tide, then to self-examination and convergence,and it was finally being effectively controlled in1990s. By review and summarize thedeveloping history, the author finds that ocean dumping and its management is theresult of human material production and human life; it is the essential stage of socialeconomic development and it is the concrete manifestation of extreme governingprocess.Under rational analysis, it defines the content of Ocean Dumping, and thenthis paper submits the viewpoint that the concept revision of Ocean Dumping shouldfocus more on the result description of dumping rather than the measures or means.Meanwhile, it locates and decomposes the aim, task and process of China’s Ocean Dumping Management. Secondly, as an important priority part of China’s OceanDumping Management, the management of dumping area, the trash to be dumped andthe impact assessment to marine environment has been emphatically discussed indifferent chapters both from their current situation and perfection measures. Thirdly,in view of the current situation and perfection of China’s Ocean DumpingManagement System, the author makes a tentative plan which covers from therealistic consideration to future transformation. This is the first time that the proposalof delicacy management has been proposed in Ocean Dumping Management whichsparkplugs that the construction of Ocean Dumping Management OperatingMechanism should pay more attention to delicacy, and also advocate that delicacyprocess management should be used in this area. Meanwhile, it suggests that theholistic government model should be built for the integration of Ocean DumpingManagement. Fourthly, on the basis of combing, introspecting and reconstructing thelaw of Ocean Dumping Management, this paper proposes that The regulation ofOcean Dumping should be revised and added from the following aspects: thejurisdictional limits of dumping, the management process and the supervisedclassification standard of dumping area and dumped trash, the charging standard ofdumping, the certification and supervision of the competent department and so on.The author also suggest that the management of pollution discharge in the sea shouldbe included into Ocean Dumping Management. Besides, total amount control systemand public participation also should be included into the manage process. Finally, thispaper takes the dumping management practices in East China Sea and Shandong seaarea as the representative examples to conduct the empirical analysis which points outsome common problems in current ocean dumping management in these two areas.For example, the location of the dumping areas gathers around the offshore areasunreasonably which makes the ocean pollution more serious; the dumping areas areunevenly distributed which affects the dumping demand and limits the developmentof coastal areas; there is no upper limit on the dumping amount; the phenomenon ofdumping volume violation becomes more and more serious which affects the normalorder of ocean development; the charge of dumping is too low to afford themanagement cost; the competent department loses effectiveness during managementprocess and afterwards punishment which affect the result. By analyzing the reasonsof the current problems, this paper proposes some effective ways to Ocean DumpingManagement, such as scientific planning, perfecting system, refining process, andall-round control.