Abstract
Prior to COVID-19, nearly 30 million people would take a cruise to their tropical or cultural destination of choice every year, and this number has increased exponentially since 2009, with an annual growth rate of about five and a half percent.1 Families and friends would pack their favorite pair of flipflops and set sail, completely unaware of the environmental damage these big boats have caused.
The first cruise ship, the Prinzessin Victoria Luise, was envisioned by Albert Ballin, director of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) in the late 1800s.2 The Victoria Luise, built by Blohm & Voss, turned to be a 407-foot vessel with a top speed of about 19 miles per hour. The ship also featured a gym, social hall, library, smoking room, art gallery, several promenade decks, a ballroom, first-class staterooms, among many other accommodations seen on cruise ships today. The Victoria Luise launched from Hamburg, Germany, on June 29, 1900, for a thirty-five-day adventure through the West Indies and Venezuela, with excursions planned for the ship’s guests at every port. In December 1906, just five years after she first launched, the ship crashed off the coast of Jamaica. Fortunately, none of the passengers were harmed.
The modern-day cruise industry is dominated by three cruise lines – Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, and Norwegian Cruise Line – together accounting for over eighty percent of the market. Carnival Cruise Line makes up nearly fifty percent of the market and offers the lowest-priced cruises for its customers. Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line make up roughly twelve and twenty-two percent of the market, respectively. The multi- billion-dollar industry is hardly affected by bad press, either. After several cruise lines have pled guilty to illegally dumping oil more than once over the past thirty years, and paying hefty fines, these major tourist attractions have only flourished. Thriving amongst chaos, the cruise industry is far from drowning.
This paper will discuss the evolution of international and United States law resulting from the increase in cruise and shipping vessels and the need to protect the marine environment from oil pollution. Further, this paper will show the cruise and shipping industry’s disobedience with the laws created as a safeguard for the ocean and its species as well as what the corporations promise, yet fail, to do. Section I will introduce the international and domestic law surrounding this issue, including the 1954 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships in 1973 and the Protocol of 1978 relating to it, the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act, the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, the Clean Water Act, and the other laws created and disasters that occurred in pushing protection of the marine environment forward. Section II will discuss many of the different cases where cruise lines and shipping vessels violate these laws. Finally, Section III will discuss the effects that oil pollution has on marine and coastal environments.