A Maritime Governance Framework

This chapter provides a universal framework for maritime governance which can be used to analyse the various approaches which have been made at all jurisdictional levels—global, supranational, national, regional, local, the individual—and also across the globe, regardless of location, and provides a mechanism for understanding the effectiveness and failings of each approach to governance and how they might be improved. The framework consists of four categories which can be applied across all governance models regardless of subject or discipline, maritime or otherwise. In this chapter, their application and relevance are considered in the context of the maritime sector. Jurisdiction refers to the level at which control, advice and political influence are exercised, the choice being between global, supranational, national, regional and local arranged in an idealised pyramidal format with superior levels of jurisdiction dictating policy-making at inferior levels. In the maritime sector, policies emerge across all of these stages. The national governance level is almost always the dominant one as the rights of the nation-state are at the forefront not only of domestic policy-making and governance but also in global and supranational institutions such as the UN and the EU. Governance at the regional and local level is always dominated by those levels above and commonly also by the nation-state. Governance objectives for the maritime sector relate to policy-making and therefore constitute the main purposes of influencing the shipping and ports market. They include sector efficiency, environmental protection, safety and security, national development ambitions, international coordination and cooperation, and welfare distribution. Priorities will vary between nation-states and also between governance levels. The instruments of governance are those methods and institutions by which these objectives are sought and to which the jurisdictional choices apply. This is an area hampered by inertia and tradition. Options for the delivery of policy and its governance include direct state execution through, for example, state ministries and state-owned shipping companies and ports. Commercial organisations can also be heavily regulated by states to impose both public policies and control. Here the state is not an owner of a commercial organisation but regulates organisations through strict means such as port state control and vessel inspection. Fiscal measures can also be used to impose policy including taxation and subsidy, typified by the range of tonnage taxes worldwide. Meanwhile, industrial self-regulation is also an option, albeit one with a degree of flexibility and effectiveness. Finally, there are agencies which are the institutions which have the responsibility of putting these policies into effect. These include direct government institutions such as ministries and shipping companies; quasi-autonomous bodies set up to regulate the industry but separated from direct state control and with a requirement to be self-supporting and to operate in a commercial way; partial and hybrid state ownership common in the ports sector where the state retains an element of control; and trade organisations with rules and standards which are self-imposed.