Legal Status of the Environmental Requirements of the MARPOL Convention for the States Parties to UNCLOS

One of the issues addressed by the UNCLOS is the protection of the marine environment. The major challenge in this respect is that the Convention has in most cases only referred to general principles and requirements and has not specified more detailed rules and specific environmental standards. This can create many practical problems for States Parties in fulfilling their environmental obligations. The reasons for this include avoiding the practical difficulties and difficulties caused by the amendment and updating of this Convention in order to comply with the newer standards. The approach taken in UNCLOS is to refer to the rules and standards contained in other instruments, such as the “International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL)”, which is much simpler to amend and update. The challenge is the legal status of the rules and standards in the recent Convention for the States Parties to UNCLOS, since; the convention has never explicitly referred to this document. However, these rules and standards seem to be binding for States Parties to UNCLOS, such as the provisions of the MARPOL.