About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

47 Tul. Mar. L.J. 185 (2023)
Coastal State vs. Flag State: Countries' Mitigation of Environmental Harm from Scrubbers?

handle is hein.journals/tulmar47 and id is 213 raw text is: 









   TULANE MARITIME LAW JOURNAL

VOLUME 47                         SPRING 2023                       NUMBER 2



        Coastal State vs. Flag State: Countries'

        Mitigation of Environmental Harm from

                                Scrubbers?


                             Shams A1-Hajjaji*


      This research argues that countries should adopt unified regulations regarding the release
of the wash waterflom the Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems in their port, territorial, and Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ). Ships use scrubbers to decrease their greenhouse gases emission in order
to comply with the International Maritime Organization sulphur content of ships'fuel limit. In
January 2020, the global upper limit reached 0.5%. Ships release scrubbers'wash water (SWW)
into the sea. The SWWincludes toxic materials. The 2008 and 2015 Guidelinesfor the Exhaust Gas
Cleaning Systems regulates the level ofthe SWW However there is uncertainty related to the SWW
harm to the marine environment and human health. This uncertainty reflects as well on the national
level. Currently, countriesfall under one ofthree main categories. Thefirst is countries that adopt
a complete ban against using scrubbers in their territorial water such as Egypt and Qatar The
second is countries that partially ban the use of scrubbers. The secondform is a ban against the
type ofthe discharge/disposal from open loop discharge (Argentina, China, and France). The third
type is countries that do not regulate the discharge ofscrubbers. Hence, this research is divided into
three Parts. After a brief Introduction, Part II tackles who bears the responsibility to investigate
environmental harm, especially the transboundary harm ofthe scrubbers'wash water PartIdeals
with the legal models that are adopted by the national regulations related to SWW These models
are (1) limited ban, versus unlimited ban, (2) specific regulations, versus general regulations, and
finally (3) binding, versus non-binding regulations. Part IV deals with the solution to the
uncertainty.

I.    IN TRO DUCTION    ..............................................................................  186
II.   UNCERTAINTY ON THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL: COASTAL!
      PORT   STATE  VERSUS FLAG STATE................................................ 192




      * C2023 Shams Al-Hajjaji  is postdoctoral research associate at The Walther Schitcking
Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel, Germany. This Article is a part of the
ShiptTrase project and was funded jointly by Belmont Forum (USA) and the Federal Ministry of
Education and Research (Germany).


185

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most