Involvement of industry
When an oil spill occurs,
the sharing of responsibility between the shipowner, the crew provider,
the charterer, the cargo
owner, the ship-builder, the worksites involved, the
classification society which checked the work, and the authority in
charge of the salvage attempt is often complex. Once a ship is loaded with
oil or petroleum products,
the cargo can change owners several times during a journey. It is therefore
difficult to identify the responsible party and it is often very tempting
to point to the most visible and solvent participant: the oil company involved.
Oil groups have therefore invested in prevention by creating vetting
units, in charge of assessing the quality of chartered vessels. They possess
contingency plans for accidental pollution coming under the responsibility
of their safety and environmental management teams. These plans dictate
the roles and responsibilities of each party when confronted with an accident,
in order to contain and recover the spill as quickly as possible and to
limit the consequences, by providing the response authorities with the group’s
intervention resources.
Involvement of industry
More information
Complexity of the organisation
of oil transportation and liability during the Prestige accident
The problem of liability
The highly international nature of the different participants in
maritime transportation in no way simplifies the process of identifying
the legally liable party in the event of an oil spill.
The International Maritime Organization, which served as a basis for establishing
the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPC
Funds), therefore introduced the principle of objective responsibility
of the vessel itself, independent of all notion of fault or blame. The simple
fact that a tanker is a source of pollution gives victims access to the
IOPC Funds, and therefore access to the possibility of compensation.