Is the Shipping industry still Sulfuring? - A study of compliance factors from the IMO 2020 sulfur cap

Sammanfattning: This paper explores different aspects of maritime environmental legislation with the goal of identifying the influencing factors associated with achieving compliance with international maritime environmental legislation. International shipping is often considered the most environmentally friendly form of transport, and while this is true, it is still a significant contributor to global warming and climate change. Furthermore, it is often intentionally left out of international environmental treaties and agreements, such as the Paris and Kyoto agreement. The paper discusses and identifies implementation and enforcement of international environmental legislation, and it discusses the guiding concept of legal certainty in international environmental legislation. After that, the paper examines the unique features of international shipping, and finally, in an attempt to answer the research question, the paper examines the recent IMO 2020 sulfur cap. The IMO 2020 sulfur changed the global sulfur emissions level from 3.5 per cent to 0.5 per cent, an ambitious goal that required a change of behaviour. While much international environmental legislation has been criticised for being unambitious and vague, the IMO 2020 sulfur is quite precise in its requirement and quite ambitious considering the required resources to ensure behavioural change. The early findings indicate positive results from both flag states and coastal states. Furthermore, although there has been some uncertainty, most shipowners have found a compliant fuel option suitable for their business model. Therefore, the paper concludes that implementation, enforcement, legal certainty, structural and political factors, and importantly, available resources are some of the crucial influencing factors on compliance with the IMO 2020 sulfur cap, and it is something the IMO should keep in mind for future environmental legislation.