Tailoring Environmental Compliance to Address the Increasingly Stringent Regulations Imposed on the Maritime Industry

This chapter appears in "Complying with Transportation Regulations: Leading Lawyers on Successfully Adapting to Increased Enforcement and Avoiding Potential Violations." Reprinted with permission. 

The maritime industry has always been subject to regulation by individual countries—with often-inconsistent requirements varying by port. Since the early part of the twentieth century, the maritime industry has also been subject to regulation by international agreements such as the Safety of Life and Sea treaty (or SOLAS) entered into in response to the Titanic disaster. Maritime disasters, such as the foundering of the Exxon Valdez in 1989 and the Macondo well incident in the US Gulf of Mexico in 2010, have generally spurred more extensive and increased regulation of the maritime industry.