Study On Ships In Distress Access To Places Of Refuge Legal Issues Under International Public Law

The access of ships in distress to places of refuge issue has been a long-standing problem in history. As early as in time of Ancient Rome and Ancient Carthage, some documents have recorded the issue. Not until the cases of the Erika, the Castor, the Prestige occurred in rapid succession, did the International community pay high attention to the access issue of ships in distress, and take systematic and in-depth study on it. Many maritime organizations including International Maritime Organization (IMO) and Comite Maritime International (CMI), take deep and persistent study on the issue.As been one of maritime issues, the access of ships in distress to places of refuge, in no way could be settled without legal rules. Since the issue involves the parties between the coastal states and the ships in distress, the two parties are unequal status in view of private law, this paper would analyze the internal legal problems through international public perspective, hoping clear out the legal nexus back behind, and seeks solves the issue countermeasure.This paper would divide into four parts to study the ships in distress access issue. In the first part, the paper definite several basic definitions about the access issue, and then introduces the background and the current situation of the issue. In the next part, this paper analyzes the issue in view of customary international law. Researching many document in history, so that this paper would like to make a conclusion that whether a ship in distress could access to a place of refuge of coast states under customary international law. In the third part, this paper searches the current international conventions, including United Nations Convention on the law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and Salvage Convention, and studies the provisions involved the access issue. All the doings are for the purpose that whether a ship in distress could access to coastal states’places of refuge under any current convention, or any current convention has ruled that a coastal state assume the obligation to permit such access. In the fourth one, the paper summarizes the current solutions to the access issue, including but not limit to, vesting the permitting access obligation on the coastal states, establishing risk assessment mechanism, and providing enough guarantees for damages, and provides some author’s own opinion on them. In the final part, this paper summarizes the legal problems on the access issue. On the base of the above mentioned countermeasures and analyzing, the paper presents some suggestions. Hoping this paper could be used for reference.