The legal regime regulating the passage of tankers, nuclear-powered ships, and ships carrying nuclear or other inherently dangerous or noxious substances near coastal areas of small-island states

Abstract

Reports commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat in 1995, and by the UN Disaster Relief Organization (UNDRO) in 1990, concluded that small states are more susceptible to injury than other states. UNDRO based its conclusion on the formulation of an index on disaster damage over a twenty-year period, from 1970 to 1989. This index depicts disaster damage as a percentage of the country's gross national product (GNP). The report illustrated that the average disaster damage according to GNP in small-island states amounted to 66 per cent, compared to 20 per cent in non-island developing countries, and to 5 per cent in developed countries. The inherent vulnerability of small-island states results from their limited human resource base, and from low economic capacity to respond to threats. The 1997 report links vulnerability to the interaction of the following factors:- (a) the incidence and intensity of risk and threat; (b) the ability to resist those risks and threats; and (c) resilience or the capacity to reconstruct without major disruption. The threat scenario depicted in this study concerns the marine environment. It focuses upon pollution resulting from the passage of tankers, nuclear-powered ships and ships carrying dangerous substances for example, vessel-generated pollution such as oil spillage resulting from the collision of, stranding of or other incident involving tankers in the vicinity of coastal areas. If such an incident occurs in the proximity of small states, such as an island ·state, that environmental disaster could constitute a major threat to State security as it could severely place the existence of that state in question.