MARPOL

Oil pollution has been identified as one of the most serious threats to marine environment since the first half of the 20th century. Within this context, a number of countries introduced, in the early 1920s, national regulations to control discharges of oil in their territorial waters. Following some fruitless attempts for the adoption of a convention to address the problem of marine pollution, the first MARPOL Convention was finally adopted in 1973 by the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation, later to be known as the IMO (International Maritime Organisation). MARPOL was the first integrated legislation that was ever adopted, covering all types of pollution, arising from both operational and accidental causes. Still, it was not until 1983 that the convention entered into force, following the addition of the 1978 Protocol. Today, the convention is commonly known as MARPOL 73/78, indicative of an instrument that comprises of both a Convention (1973) and a Protocol (1978). Thereafter, every effort to amend the convention has constituted a new Annex, which was added to the MARPOL structure. The last amendment took place in 1997, with the adoption of the Protocol on the Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships, which entered into force on May 19, 2005. In 2004, amendments to MARPOL Annexes I and II were adopted by the IMO; these shall become effective on January 1, 2007.