Shipping is a fragmented, global industry operating in a culturally diverse environment. As a result of rising maritime accident rates and pollution incidents in the 1970s and 1980s, the International Maritime Organisation introduced two conventions that entered fully into force in 2002: the International Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and Pollution Prevention (ISM Code), and the 1995 revision of the 1978 Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW Code). Introduction of the conventions served to focus the attention of the international maritime community on the need to raise industry-wide safety standards, but questions were raised about whether it was possible to develop a safety culture in a fragmented, global industry and what effects the diversity of cultures might have upon implementation of the ISM Code. This study explores those questions. Subsequent to a review of the literature, a model of the working of the ISM Code is developed and used to identify the constraints and pressures, particularly those that might be influenced by cultural values and attitudes, that impact upon the development and implementation of a Safety Management System in individual shipping organisations, which is the essence of the ISM Code. A comparative case study methodology is adopted for the empirical research and a number of investigative techniques are used to test the ISM Code model and obtain both qualitative and quantitative data to determine whether the impact of culturally influenced constraints and pressures would be best addressed by stricter enforcement of existing regulatory provisions or greater emphasis on education and training. From analysis of the data collected, the study concluded that: • Professional, vocational and safety training correctly utilised are effective in harmonising culturally influenced safety perspectives, thus improving safety performance; and • Culturally influenced constraints and pressures can be dealt with by the application of standard management techniques which, in a multi-cultural environment requires good cross-cultural management skills. The most common method of determining how effective a company has been in dealing with the various constraints and pressures affecting safety performance is to evaluate the efficacy of the organisation's Safety Management System by analysis of accident records, lost time incidents and hazardous occurrences (ACNSI, 1993). These data, reported under the provisions of Clause 9 of the ISM Code, are therefore analysed and compared with an industry sector benchmark. The study however, goes beyond such a purely quantitative approach and establishes the relative safety climate of the case study companies by means of perceptual audit of salient, safety-related factors. This qualitative technique draws together all the main research elements of the study and a Safety Climate Comparator is developed that provides a useful indicator of the relative status of those culturally influenced factors that ultimately affect a company's safety performance. By extension, the technique may be used to provide a Relative Safety Culture Maturity Model to measure the safety climate of other shipping companies relative to a benchmark standard.

Ship exhausts contain high levels of sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and particles dueto the heavy fuel oil, HFO, used for combustion and the combustion characteristics of the engine.As a result of upcoming stricter regulations for shipping pollution, as well as growing attentionto greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and uncertainty of future petroleum oil supply, a shifttowards a cleaner burning fuel is needed.This work explores potential alternative fuels, both conventional and unconventional, and abatementtechnologies, to be used by tankers in the worldwide spot market to comply with upcomingenvironmental regulations in the near and coming future. As a reference the product tanker M/TGotland Marieann is used and recommendations for which fuel that shall be used by the referenceship in 2015 and 2020 are presented.The environmental assessment and evaluation of the fuels are done from a life cycle perspective usingresults from Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, studies.This study illustrates that, of the various alternatives, methanol appears to be the best candidatefor long-term, widespread replacement of petroleum-based fuels within tanker shipping. It does notemit any sulphur oxides nor particles and the nitrogen oxides are shown to be lower than those ofmarine gas oil, MGO. The global warming potential of the natural gas produced methanol is notlower than that of MGO, but when gradually switching to bio-methanol the greenhouse gas emissionsare decreasing and with methanol the vision of a carbon free society can be reached.For 2015 a switch towards methanol is not seen as realistic. Further research and establishment ofregulations and distribution systems are needed, however there are indications that a shift will bepossible sometime between 2015 and 2020. For 2015 a shift towards MGO is suggested as it involveslow investment costs and there is no need for infrastructure changes. As MGO is more expensivethan methanol, a shift is preferable as soon as the market, technology and infrastructure are ready.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse which navigational rights are applicable to foreign commercial vessels performing trans-arctic shipping through the Northwest Passage and how this affects the potential for Canada, through article 234 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to issue national environmental legislation regulating pollution from ships. This is done through the method of legal dogmatics, characterised by analysis of the sources of law and the hierarchy between them. In this paper, the main sources of law employed are UNCLOS and relevant case law from the International Court of Justice. The main conclusions presented in the paper are that the Northwest Passage consists of a combination of territorial sea and exclusive economic zone, which generally means that commercial vessels are allowed innocent passage through the parts of the passage forming the territorial sea and are largely subject to freedom of navigation through those parts that form the exclusive economic zone. However, it seems likely that the Northwest Passage is a strait used for international navigation, in which case, the vessels passing through it are instead subject to the regime of transit passage. This would negatively affect the possibility for Canada to issue national legislation to regulate pollution from foreign vessels. However, as long as the Northwest Passage is covered by ice for most of the year, article 234 UNCLOS allows Canada far more leeway in regard to issuing anti-pollution legislation, both in the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone, regardless of whether the Northwest Passage is found to be a strait used for international navigation. The passage regime applicable to foreign commercial vessels under article 234 could be characterised as a sui generis passage.