Responsibility & Accountability in Maritime Law

Since this book was published in 2022, the maritime world has changed dramatically, and the development of the seafarer’s accountability has been bewildering. It demands a thorough review.

The purpose of this book is to examine the phenomenon of criminalisation which confronts the Master in their professional conduct, amid the dangers and uncertainties forced on them by geopolitics and by the Risk Society. The fault lines of criminalisation, which go to the heart of the question, demand an understanding of how the concept of criminal justice has evolved to impose accountability on the Master, in circumstances which had not been crimes before. It is all about management and responsibility: who will take the blame? We examine how the Master’s responsibility for the safety of life at sea and the protection of the marine environment has developed into a risk management function that renders them criminally accountable in the event of a casualty event.

The pressures on accountability in maritime operations are greater now than ever, largely thanks to three significant factors:

• The normative ethics of the Risk Society, which define well-meaningly their social priorities, but at the cost of the seafarer’s human rights, which have been exposed;
• In recent polls of seafarers, pollution was identified as the biggest issue that respondents believed they could be criminalised for. Hence, an understanding of marine environmental priorities is essential;
• The new world order in which the geopolitical ambitions of powerful States have dispensed with the old order of international law, leaving behind chaos and confusion.

This book therefore must focus on the geopolitical instability, environmental enforcement, and pressures on the human element that reflect current and emerging risks in maritime operations.

Through all of this, the risks on the seafarer have not changed; they simply need very careful management. Key elements have manifested and evolved, even in the last five years, forcing us to examine the problems and risks in entirely new ways.