Marine Pollution Control: Law, Science, and Politics
| Date | 01 March 1973 |
| Published date | 01 March 1973 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207302800104 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DOUGLAS
M.
JOHNSTON
Marine
pollution
control:
law,
science,
and
politics
THE
TWENTY-PER-CENT
APPROACH
The
ocean
was
the
cradle
of
life.
Since
the end
of
the
Ice Age
it
has
covered almost
three-quarters
of
the
earth's
surface.
The
exist-
ence
of
this
immense
reservoir
may
alone
distinguish
our
planet
from
others.
We
can
scarcely
imagine
how
life
could
be
sustained
without
the
presence
of
an
ocean.
Its
interactions
with
the
atmo-
sphere
ensure
the
perpetual
greening
of
our
land
environment.
In
global perspective,
the
ocean
is
the
basis
of
our
life-support
system.
The
ocean
has always
had
a
romantic
appeal,
attracting
myth
and
superstition.
In
our
fancy
the
sea
is
blue,
its
eternal
mo-
mentum
symbolized
by
the
pounding
of
the
waves
on
the shore.
But
in
reality
the
sea
is
green,
the
colour
of life;
and
its
life force
is
not
immutable.
It
has
been known
for
decades
that
sea
fisheries
may,
and
sometimes
do,
become
exhausted
through
overexploita-
tion.
In
the
i96os,
moreover,
we
started
to
learn
that
the
sea
itself
is
mortal.
Its
condition
is
deteriorating,
and
it
may
be
dying
faster
than
we
would
like
to
believe.
Technologically, the
process of
deterioration
can be
checked,
and
even
reversed,
for
most
of
its
causes
can be
attributed
to
human
activities.
Marine
ecologists
believe
that
the
preservation
of the
ocean
environment
can
be
ensured
by
technically
feasible
adjustments
and
precautions
in our
use
of
the
seas.
Unfortunately,
any
effective
combination
of
adjustments
and
precautions
involves
difficult
organizational
tasks
that
require
unprecedented
exercises
of
political
will
and
novel
feats
of
legal
imagination.
The
vast-
ness
of the
ocean
and
the interdependence
of
its
environmental
Visiting
Professor
of
Law,
Dalhousie
University;
author
of
The
International
Law of
Fisheries
(1965).
70
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
processes
call
for
universal
understandings
on
at
least
the
first
principles
of
marine
resource
development
and
conservation.
On
the
other hand,
the
variety
of
the
ocean
environment
and
of
the
uses
and
abuses
to which
it
is
subjected
invites
regional,
even
subregional,
approaches
to
some
aspects
of
marine
pollution.
But
the
problem
of
maintaining
and
reconciling different
levels
of
treatment
is
slight
compared
with the
difficulty
of
overcoming
the
tradition
of
national
prerogative.
Pride
of
sovereignty
is
still
so
strong
in
the
world
community
that
it
virtually
negates
any
im-
mediate
possibility
of a
truly
comprehensive
approach to the
problem
of
marine
pollution. Furthermore,
the establishment
of
a
truly
comprehensive regime for
the
protection
of
the
ocean
en-
vironment
would
require
solutions
to
organizational
problems
of
stupefying
complexity.
This
complexity
arises
from
the variety
of
forms
and
sources
of
marine
pollution.
As
much
as
8o
per cent
of
all
pollutants
in
the
ocean
originate
on
land,
the
pollutants being
washed
out
to
sea
through
rivers,
canals,
and
pipes,
or
carried
out
through
the
atmosphere.
Almost
all
of
these
effluents
and
emissions
from
land
are
man-made:
familiar
waste
products
of
our
technological
civili-
zation. Accordingly,
8o
per cent
of
the
problem
of
controlling
marine
pollution
is
complicated
by
all
the
difficulties
that
stand
in
the
way
of
a
universal
approach
to
pollution
control
problems
on
land.
Perhaps
the
most
serious
of these
is
the
attitude
of
most
developing countries
who believe
that
pollution
is
the
byproduct
of
technological
development,
chiefly
the
problem
of
affluent
countries;
and
that
strict
pollution
controls
are
a
luxury
beyond
the
means
of
the
poorer
economies.
When
pollution,
so
inter-
preted,
is
known
to
be
destroying
the
international
marine
environment,
domestic
indifference
in
developing
areas
gives
way
to resentment,
aggravating
the
existing
tensions
between
have
and
have-not
states
and
reducing
the
prospect
of
universal
action
which
would
involve
a
general
sharing
of
the
costs
of
environ-
mental protection.
As
a
result,
the
fight
to establish
multilateral
measures
for
the
prevention
and
control
of
marine
pollution
has
been
led
by
a
few,
environmentally
conscious, affluent
states.
MARINE
POLLUTION
CONTROL
71
Even
the
most
ardent
environmentalist
states,
like
Canada,
having
assumed
a
leadership
role
in
marine
pollution
diplomacy,
have
had to
acknowledge
the present
intractability
of
8o
per
cent
of
the
problem and
concentrate
their
diplomatic
energy
on
the
remaining
20
per
cent:
the
problem
of
reaching
agreement
on
adequate
measures to
curb
the
dumping
and
discharge
of
wastes
at
sea.
It
is
usually
alleged
that
there
is
no
practical
alternative
to
the
2o-per-cent
approach,
since
effluents
and
emissions
originating
on
land
cannot
be
brought
under
international
regulation.
The
truth
of
this
is
variable,
depending
on
the
pollutant
being
con-
sidered.'
For
example,
the
greatest
volume
of
waste
materials
entering
surface
waters
from
land
is
composed
of
sediments
pro-
duced
by
the
natural
erosion
of
the
shore.
Natural pollution
of
this
kind
cannot
be
subjected
to
regulation
at
any level
of
organi-
zation.
The
only
regulatory
response
may
be
to
ensure,
in
areas
where
pollution
by
sediments
is
most
serious,
that
the
problem
is
not
aggravated
by
such
man-made
forms
of
pollution
as
sewage
sludge
and
dredge
spoil
dumping,
which
can
be
regulated
most
easily
at
the
level
of
local
authority.
In
the
case
of
marine
pollution
through
an
excess
of
nutrients
introduced
from
land,
the
appropriateness
of
international
regula-
tion
depends on the
sources
of
each
nutrient.
The
eutrophication
of
estuaries
and
adjacent
coastal
areas
occurs
through
the over-
fertilization of
the
waters
by
an
excess
of
certain
chemicals,
such
as
phosphorus
and nitrogen,
which remove
the
oxygen
and kill
the
fish.
Approximately
6o
per
cent
of
the
phosphorus
in
North
American
coastal
waters
comes
from
the
disposal
of
municipal
waste,
traditionally
a
matter
for
regulation
by
local
administrative
bodies.
International
or
transnational
co-operation
between
such
bodies
is
certainly
feasible
and
desirable,
though
many
operate
under
constitutional
constraints
that
make
it
difficult to
take
such
initiatives
without
the
consent
of
a
central
government.
The
i
Pollutants
can be
classified
in
many different
ways.
This
section
uses
the
method
adopted,
and
some
of
the
information
provided,
in
T.A.
Clingan,
Jr,
'Law
Affecting
the
Quality
of
the
Marine
Environment,'
University
of
Miami
Law
Review,
xxvi
(1971),
223 .
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