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The International Maritime Organization (IMO), as a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for the safety and security of international shipping and the prevention of pollution from ships, has applied two main area-based management tools (ABMTs): the "Special Areas" established under the MARPOL 73/78; and the "Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas" (PSSAs) established under the IMO resolutions. The new Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ agreement) stipulates the establishment of a comprehensive system of ABMTs to conserve and sustainably use areas beyond national jurisdiction. Strengthening coordination in the use of ABMTs established by the IMO and the BBNJ Agreement is important for vessel pollution control in the high seas. The IMO is a stakeholder for relevant proposals and consultations on proposals regarding the establishment of ABMTs in the BBNJ Agreements, and can provide information on the implementation of them. The Conference of the Parties (COPs) to the BBNJ Agreement can also make recommendations to the IMO and its parties to promote the adoption of special areas and PSSAs. This article respectively elaborates on the practices and effect of ABMTs of the IMO and explores the relevant rules of the BBNJ agreement and their enforcement. Then this article discusses the possible approaches for the ABMTs coordination between the IMO and the BBNJ agreement regimes and their implications on vessel pollution Control in the high seas. Overall, relevant rules of the BBNJ agreement shall be interpreted and applied in a manner that does not undermine relevant legal instruments of the IMO. Meanwhile, it is necessary to promote cooperation and coordination between the COPs to the BBNJ Agreement and the IMO under the idea of conserving ecosystem integrity, gradually forming a normal cooperation and informati

To significantly reduce sulfur oxides emissions from fossil fuel-powered ships, reduce air pollution in ports and slow ocean acidification, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has imposed the new 0.50%m/m limit (reduced from 3.50%m/m in the past) on sulphur in ships' fuel oil. This has given rise to a host of issues regarding fuel replenishment operations, safe operation management, maritime regulation, and coordinated governance of air and climate. In response to ocean acidification and climate change, regulations on the use of low-sulfur oil or alternative fuels by ships greatly reduce sulfur oxide emissions, but have no significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the refining process for low-sulfur fuels and the use of the gas cleaning system on ships both increase energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. To ensure the decarbonization process of shipping industry, there is an urgent need for a conceptual change in global ocean governance so as to promote the coordinated governance of air pollution and climate change. China's conception of "a maritime community with a shared future" provides a new model for global ocean governance. The Chinese government has formulated regulations at different levels to promote the coordinated management of atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. Regarding supervision of sulfur oxide emissions from ships, this study proposes to build a multi-department collaborative supervision mechanism from marine fuel life cycle to enhance sulfur oxide monitoring and risk control capabilities. Specific measures of the proposed supervision mechanism include: the joint supervision of compliant fuel supply, the compliant fuel information disclosure platform, a joint law enforcement mechanism for atmospheric pollution, the ability of intelligent ship exhaust monitoring, and the construction of port power infrastructure.

The entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world's largest free trade agreement, has injected new vitality into multilateralism and free trade, against a background of global economic and political instability. Its core concept is to liberalize and facilitate trade. Regulation of the shipping market warrants attention. Under the RCEP, the international shipping industry is characterized by a digital development trend in shipping supervision, continuous upgrading of shipping management and supervision capabilities, and more open and transparent shipping market supervision. However, in the process of implementing new rules for shipping market supervision, there are still some challenges, such as logistics risks and loopholes in shipping supply chains, insufficient coordination of shipping supervision among RCEP member countries, and an imperfect legal and regulatory system. This paper therefore suggests that under the RCEP, China should strengthen the anti-risk ability of shipping supply chains, promote coordinated supervision among member countries, strengthen environmental protection, and promote the coordination of digital supervision.

Maritime jurisdiction plays an important role in international trade and marine transport. It involves special kinds of rules that vary among different countries and legal systems. Thus, in international maritime jurisdiction, the coordination and settlements of jurisdictional conflicts are vital for the uniformity of international maritime law. This study provides a comparative analysis of maritime jurisdiction in international trade and marine transport. First, it introduces the concept, category, and legal characteristics of maritime jurisdiction based on historical sources. Then, we conduct a comparative analysis of the civil law system, common law system, international conventions, and Chinese maritime jurisdiction provisions, focusing on their differences and the existing legal problems. Among other suggestions for the improvement of the rules of maritime jurisdiction, this study proposes the unification and coordination of maritime jurisdiction, which could impact international trade and marine transport.

UK Coastguard coordinate search for overdue fishing vessel.

The carbon emission of shipping industry accounts for about 3% of the global total. With the continuous growth of international trade, the decarbonization and carbon neutralization of shipping industry has become an important direction for future development. New technologies, fuels and operational measures can help reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions, but without appropriate laws and policies, it will be difficult to achieve the targets set by the industry. Therefore, this paper reviews the decarbonization laws and policies introduced by International Maritime Organization, the European Union and the national levels. Then, this paper reviews the literature from two aspects: applicability and evaluation of laws and policies, improvement of laws and policies. On this basis, we summarize the challenges of shipping in formulating laws and policies and suggestions for improving them. Among them, the most important problem is the coordination between unilateral regulation and uniform regulation. Finally, this paper proposes the development principles based on shipping decarbonization laws and policies, that is, to comply with the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities", to coordinate the relationship between international trade and international environmental protection, and to guarantee technical assistance to developing countries.

Under the Black Sea Initiative so far, 12 vessels have been "authorized to depart the Ukrainian ports," the acting UN coordinator for the grain deal told UN journalists in New York on Wednesday.

Cargo Ship Saigon Queen Sinks Off Sri Lanka, 4 Crew Missing.

The Italian coastguard said it had coordinated the rescue Monday of 1,151 migrants in 11 separate operations off the Libyan coast.

Italy's coast guard said on Tuesday it had coordinated the rescue of 1,271 migrants from rubber and wooden boats in several operations off the coast of Libya.

​IMO continues to support international efforts to respond to the oil spill in Mauritius, following the break up of the MV Wakashio. IMO and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) have jointly deployed an expert, who is advising the Government of Mauritius on the mitigation of the impacts on the environment and coastal communities.

Professor Thomas PEACOCK is a member of the UN Global Compact Task Force urging coordinated international response for offshore and shipping industries.

In the past few decades, ship-source GHG emissions have increased significantly. As a large country with massive shipping activities, China has issued a number of governmental policies with the aim of promoting shipping decarbonization and achieving green shipping. This study adopts the Policy Modeling Consistency Index (PMC-Index) approach to quantitatively evaluate 15 representative policies that are dealing with shipping decarbonization affairs to different extents in China. The results show that there exists an overall good policy consistency with the average PMC index scoring 6.26, but all studied policies have certain aspects to be further improved. By reviewing these representative policies, it reveals that more emphasis has been placed by the Chinese government on the development and application of clean energy, coordination between shipping and port industries, and governance mechanism for shipping decarbonisation issues. In addition, two policy implications are draw for policy-makers in China.

After two years of preparations, the Indonesian government finally enacted a regulation, Peraturan Pemerintah (PP) No. 13/2022 on the Governance of Maritime Security, Safety and Law Enforcement at Indonesia's Territorial Water and Jurisdiction, to designate the Indonesia Maritime Security Board (Bakamla) as coordinating body for all existing maritime institutions that have the authority to establish order at sea.

Uncertainties in port handling efficiency can cause port delays in the liner shipping system. Furthermore, policies on carbon emission reduction, such as EEXI standards, restrict the potential for speed optimization in liner shipping operations. Traditional tactical planning speed optimization is unsuitable for operational-level decision making, leading to unreliable schedules. From a schedule-reliability and energy-efficiency perspective, we propose a real-time speed optimization method based on discrete hybrid automaton (DHA) and decentered model predictive control (DMPC). We use a dynamic adjustment of sailing speed to offset the disturbance caused by port handling efficiency uncertainties. First, we establish a DHA model that describes each ship's hybrid dynamics of state switching between sailing and berthing; then, we develop a prediction model for the DMPC controller, which is analogous to the DHA model. The schedule is transferred into time-position coordinates as controller reference trajectories in the receding horizon speed optimization framework. We consider determining tracking errors, carbon emissions, and fuel consumption as our objectives, and we carry out engine power limitation (EPL) analysis for the sample ship, which turns the EEXI standards into constraints. We attain the recommended speed by solving a mixed-integer optimization. We carry out a case study, and our results indicate the effectiveness of our proposed DHA-DMPC scheme in lowering port delays and achieving the best trade-off between schedule reliability and energy efficiency. Additionally, we conduct further experiments to analyze the impacts of various carbon reduction policies on the performance levels of liner shipping operations.