IMO Particularly Sensitive Areas

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) provides Guidelines for the Designation of Special Areas and the Identification of Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (Resolution A. 720(17)) where special routing measures can be applied to pollution from ships. The treaties concerned with pollution from ships were all adopted under the auspices of the IMO, which exercises certain supervisory functions in the relation to them.

Special areas are those which are subject of stricter measures under the 1973 Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL, as amended in 1978). Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSAs) are areas which need 'special protection through action by IMO because of [their] significance for recognised ecological or socio- economic or scientific reasons and which may be vulnerable to environmental damage by maritime activities' (IMO Guidelines, point 3.1.2).

 

Routing measures which can be established and recommended by IMO on proposal by the interested States include: areas to be avoided, in particular where 'there is the possibility that unacceptable damage to the environment could result from a casualty' (IMO Guidelines, point 3.6.2), compulsory pilotage, traffic separation schemes, special construction requirements and speed restrictions. Measures for PSSAs lying beyond the territorial sea are to be based on existing treaties.

 

So far only two PSSAs have been designated under the framework of the IMO Guidelines. The first one which is located in Australia within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park 'should' be avoided by all ships over 500 GRT and ships 'should act' in accordance with Australia's system of pilotage (Resolution of 16 November 1990). The second is the Sabana-Camaguey archipelago in Cuba (Resolution of 25 September 1997).