A Study On The Regulation Of Unmanned Ships

According to the position paper issued by the International Maritime Committee(CMI),unmanned ships refer to a ship capable of controlled movement on the water without any crew.This paper mainly studies the related regulatory issues faced by unmanned ships under the current international and domestic legal systems.The regulation of unmanned vessels faces with both technical and legal challenges.Among them.The legal challenges cover the three major aspects,namely the international conventions concerning the safety of navigation of ships under the International Maritime Organization(IMO),international law of the sea and relevant domestic laws.This paper mainly focuses on the legal attributes of unmanned ships and discusses whether the unmanned ship is applicable to the current legal system and what impact it will bring.The article builds a multi-dimensional textual framework,vertically studies the relevant legal systems of international law and domestic law.Horizontally studies the international law of the sea,three representative conventions of the IMO maritime security legal system:including the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea(SOLAS),the International Convention for the Prevention of Collision at Sea(COLREGS)and the International Convention on Standards of Training,Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers(STCW),as well as the relevant domestic laws.This paper sorts out the legal concepts concerning ships systematically and studies the legal issues that unmanned ships need to face in the current legal system,including how to clarify the legal status of unmanned ships,how to identify the captain and crew of unmanned ships,and how to regulate the navigation safety of unmanned ships.As to the framework,this paper includes four major parts except for the preface and conclusion.The first part is based on the concept of ships in international law and domestic law,with the aim to clarify the legal status of unmanned ships,and analyze the types of unmanned ships.The second part focuses on the progress of the unmanned ship's regulations,introduces the domestic and foreign efforts to establish the legal system of unmanned ships.In the third part,mainly combine the technical and legal challenges faced by the current development of unmanned ships.The fourth part gives the prospects of the future regulation of unmanned ships from the international and domestic levels,and provides legislative framework and implementation guidelines for the future international regulation of unmanned ships.Under examining the achievements of international organizations and countries in the development and regulation of unmanned ships comprehensively,this part tries to put forward proposals on how China should deal with the regulation of unmanned ships in combination with China's national interests and the status quo of domestic regulation.