Captain J. Ashley Roach, JAGC, USN (retired) Office of the Legal Adviser U.S. Department of State (retired) CIL Senior Visiting Principal Research Fellow CIL Workshop: Ocean Governance and International Shipping - Session 2 Friday 21 April 2017
Overview Polar Code geographic scope of application Effects of reduction of extent of Arctic Ocean sea ice Making Polar Code mandatory Implementation of Polar Code Future work on Polar Code 2
World Map (Mercator projection) Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:mercator-projection.jpg 3
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. Arctic Sea Ice Extent: Minimum and Maximum Source: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ 5
Possible New Routes through Arctic Ocean: Shorter distance of around 3,900 to 4,500 nm in both the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route Sources: http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/northern-sea-route-and-the-northwest-passage-compared-with-currently-usedshipping-routes_1336. Author: Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal; http://www.discoveringthearctic.org.uk/images/1img_nwne_globes.jpg 6
Polar Code Arctic Geographic Scope of Application 7
IMO Tacit Acceptance Procedure Committee Meeting Interval Committee Meeting Interval Entry into force SOLAS Article VIII Amendments to Regulations except Chapter I MSC 93 approved for circulation new Chapter XIV May 2014 Minimum 6 months MSC 94 adopted Nov. 2014 Minimum one year Deemed accepted 1 July 2016 EIF 1 January 2017 MARPOL Article 16 Amendments to Annexes I, II, IV, V MEPC 67 approved for circulation October 2014 Minimum 6 months MEPC 68 adopted May 2015 Minimum 10 months Deemed accepted 1 July 2016 EIF 1 January 2017 STCW Article XII Amendments to Annex MSC 95 approved for circulation June 2015 Minimum 6 months MSC 97 adopted Nov 2016 Minimum one year MSC 97 Deemed accepted 1 January 2018 EIF 1 July 2018 8
Applicability of Polar Code Applies to merchant ships of 500 gt or greater operating in polar waters whether or not on international voyages Existing ships (constructed before January 2017) intending to transit or operate within polar waters required to comply with Polar Code by the first intermediate survey or renewal survey, whichever comes first, after 1 January 2018 Applicable to new ships constructed after 1 January 2017 may be months later Port State Control would thus begin 1 January 2018 at the earliest May be voluntary compliance earlier as a commercial decision (competitive advantage) for ships intending to transit during 2017 Not many trans-arctic Ocean voyages in 2016 9
Implementation of Polar Code At CIL workshop 29 November 2016 participants identified steps being taken to implement the Polar Code which entered into force 1 January 2017 The USCG will be implementing in stages through several rulemakings Republic of Korea has issued a notice on implementation Russian Register of Shipping reported to have developed a model Polar Water Operational Manual P&I clubs will require full compliance to have coverage Paris and Tokyo Port State Control MOUs being updated Work has not begun on revising the IMO PSC Guidelines 10
Canadian Implementation of Polar Code At a CIL seminar on 2 March 2017, Professor Aldo Chircop of Dalhousie University law school noted that the Polar Code s provisions are largely equivalent to the Canadian regime and that the differences are not considered significant Chircop said that current Canadian legislation (mostly regulations) will be amended by: Applying the consistent provisions Scale up rules which are less stringent than the Polar Code Keep current rules that offer higher protection than the Polar Code See his presentation for details at https://cil.nus.edu.sg/programmesand-activities/past-events/managing-shipping-in-canadian-arcticwaters-assumptions-aspirations-and-concerns/ 11
Russia s Jurisdiction over Northern Sea Route At a 21 February 2017 CIL seminar on Russia s Coastal State Jurisdiction over the Arctic Northern Sea Route, Jan Solski of the K.G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea, University of Tromsø the Arctic University of Norway described the evolution of Russia s regulation of shipping through the Northern Sea Route At the time of his presentation it was not known how Russia intends to implement the Polar Code For his presentation see https://cil.nus.edu.sg/programmes-andactivities/past-events/russias-coastal-state-jurisdiction-over-the-arcticnorthern-sea-route/ 12
Northern Sea Route At a CIL 23 February 2017 seminar on Challenges for Arctic Marine Transport and the Northern Sea Route, Professor Lawson Brigham, University of Alaska Fairbanks, discussed Arctic marine traffic and global links Changing Arctic marine access Northern Sea Route and future Yamal LNG project Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment Suggested a plausible future maritime Arctic For details see https://cil.nus.edu.sg/programmes-and-activities/pastevents/challenges-for-arctic-marine-transport-and-the-northern-searoute/ 13
Future Work on Polar Code Current version understood to be only the beginning. To be improved as experience is gathered Formal work on stage 2 has not begun at the IMO Sub-Committees are studying risk assessment methodology, additional performance and test standards on life-saving appliances, extending Polar Code to non-solas ships Survey Guidelines have been amended Calls for ban on use of heavy fuel oil in Arctic Ocean as is now the case in the Southern Ocean 14
Thank you for your attention Questions? jashleyr@yahoo.com 15