Academy On 50 Years Of MARPOL Organized By Centre For Maritime Environmental Law, GMU And Sea And Beyond [11th-19th March, 2024]

ABOUT SEA AND BEYOND

Sea and Beyond is a 9 year old company which deals into mentoring, education and on-shore recruitment of maritime professionals and is a 1-stop solution for all needs of maritime professionals under one roof. Our vision is to ensure that maritime professionals are able to take well-informed professional decisions.

Sea and Beyond (www.seaandbeyond.com) is partnered to more than 120+ companies and 40 plus education institutes in UK, France, Greece, Cyprus, Canada, Dubai which provide maritime focused courses. We also support more than 75,000 maritime professionals who are connected to us for their various purposes. We plan to become enablers of quality education in the maritime field.

ABOUT THE ACADEMY

Minimising pollution in our oceans is critical to human health and marine biodiversity. Historically the shipping industry has ignored the damaging effects caused by it on the marine environment consequently, said damage has been rapidly increasing over the last 300 years. In the 1950s, the international community started to realize the extensive damaging effect on marine life and coastal pollution caused by shipping. Steps were taken to deter massive oil spills which resulted in the enactment of the 1954 Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Oil (OILPOL). After the formation of the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO) in 1959 which subsequently became the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the Torrey Canyon incident of 1967 brought forth the subsequent significant change. In this incident, the maritime industry saw a spillage of 120,000 tonnes of crude oil in the sea near the English Channel by the tanker Torrey Canyon. The incident portrayed the inadequacies of the prevailing environmental framework provisions to establish responsibility and evaluate the amount of compensation for oil pollution casualties. Due to this incident, IMO Assembly called an international conference on marine pollution in Brussels where nations deliberated on the need of establishing more extensive marine environment policy and highlighted the concerns regarding marine pollution caused by a substance other than oil and emphasized the importance of expanding the application marine environment policies beyond oil pollution. The 1973 IMO Conference on Marine Pollution in London led to the establishment of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). Nevertheless, the Convention failed to receive the required ratification from the States thereby failing implementation. However, the series of oil spill incidents involving oil tankers along the United States coast resulted in the IMO conference on Tanker Safety and Pollution of 1978 which resulted in the implementation of a new protocol to the MARPOL 1973 and with it the implementation of the MARPOL 73/78 . The MARPOL originally consisted of V Annexes and in 1997 a Protocol was adopted that amended the MARPOL which added regulations related to Air Pollution as Annex VI. The protocol after its enforcement on 19 May 2005 restricted the volatile organic compounds (VOC), ozone-depleting substances (ODS), Sulphur oxides (SOx), Nitrous oxides (NOx), and other main air pollutants emitted from commercial ships.

Day by day as regulations tighten and zero tolerance for environmental damage becomes more prevalent along with the need for companies to fully comply with MARPOL Convention. To meet this critical demand and raise awareness regarding pollution from ships, Centre for Maritime Environmental Law, GMU provides this academy to impart understanding about the standards, duties, and consequences of non-compliance with the MARPOL Convention. The training is designed to spread awareness among corporate executives, senior officers, designated persons ashore, superintendents, auditors, regulators, vessel inspectors and students. The Academy on 50 Years of Marpool is scheduled to be organized virtually from 11^th to 19^th March, 2024.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COURSE

The academy is organised to commemorate 50 years of MARPOL. It will contribute to the goals of expanding knowledge and providing the necessary information of principles of MARPOL by showcasing the enforcement, implementation, evolution of the MARPOL in last 50 year along with its impact on the member states. This academy will provide meaningful targeted training in environmental awareness and MARPOL compliance. It will consist of lectures delivered by experts in the areas of safety management, auditing, flag state control, and port state control in an engaging interactive style. The academy is designed for anyone interested in understanding about the present scenario of the issues related to climate change in shipping sector.