SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study is concerned with the legal mechanisms and institutional arrangements established to control compliance with commitments undertaken in treaty form by Mediterranean States, with a view at protecting the marine environment from various sources of pollution. Part I begins with a brief presentation of the state of the Mediterranean environment, both natural and socio-economic. There follows a consideration and assessment of the nature and extent of, and the relationship between, environmental obligations arising under the relevant instruments adopted at the global, regional and sub-regional level, in order to identify the implications thereof for the design and application of the said mechanisms and arrangements. In Part II, the treatment of the core issue begins with an initial review of the evolution of compliance-control mechanisms under general international, and especially environmental, law, followed by a critical examination of the legal arrangements - actually or potentially - used in the Mediterranean to ensure compliance with the said body of law. In this context, a distinction is made between the traditional models, namely the state responsibility and civil liability approach to compliance control and the comprehensive institutional model, and the emerging approaches, namely provision of financial and technical assistance as compliance incentives, and compliance control and enforcement under national law. Finally, this thesis argues that the most constructive way to encourage observance of international marine pollution standards in the region in the long term is through the intervention of international law towards developing appropriate procedural means for follow up and enforcement within domestic legal systems, while, in the short term, efforts should concentrate at establishing - or refining - comprehensive institutional mechanisms that would necessarily accommodate arrangements for financial and technical assistance dependent on effective compliance.