Development of international pollution controls: A marine policy study

Control of pollutants emanating from the land rests exclusively with the relevant States, but marine pollution evades all political boundaries and thus all nations are involved. The need to establish international norms to guide the regulation of marine pollution has led to increasing international co-operation. Institutional responses to pollution in the marine environment, both fresh-water and oceanic, were examined to support the proposition that national and international pollution controls have evolved over the past few decades. General treaties have given way to water quality treaties and finally to pollution-specific treaties. Detailed treaties have given way to umbrella treaties with protocols and annexed lists of pollutants easily updated. Major environmental events which have had a profound influence on public perception and institutional response were noted. The influences of international "soft law", national policies and unilateral acts were noted. Recent environmental crises emphasize the weaknesses in some areas of existing international law and the need for further regional implementation and ratification of the Law of the Sea. The evolving law of the sea symbolizes a paradigmatic shift in the nature of international jurisprudence: for the first time, the entire international community will, in the near future, be bound by a set of rules concerning the conservancy of over 70% of the surface of its planet. Not merely rights, not merely obligations, but also management responsibilities are being incorporated in the new jurisprudential system. All nations are deeply and immediately concerned with this complex array of issues straddling not only matters of conventional jurisprudence but also of economics, geography, oceanography, marine biology, industrial management, and international politics.