International ocean pollution agreements fail to provide
for or encourage the rehabilitation of ocean ecologies
already affected by plastic accumulation. However, the
necessary foundation for ocean rehabilitation projects
already exists. Emerging international laws of general application1
could form political and legal frameworks to define
the status of ocean rehabilitation projects and states’
obligations to such projects.
In the context of ongoing feasibility assessments for The
Ocean Cleanup, this sub-chapter seeks to aggregate recent
developments in international environmental law
to demonstrate the existence of novel legal frameworks,
which are capable of supporting ocean rehabilitation projects
such as The Ocean Cleanup. Although this analysis
is specific to ocean environments, the basic international
legal principles could support application to other environmental
issues. The goals of this section are threefold,
and are in order of subsections: 1) to analyze the relevance
of current international maritime legal frameworks in the
context of ocean rehabilitation; 2) to extract relevant principles
from international maritime agreements and laws
of general application, particularly related to pollution;
and 3) to suggest a possible legal framework to define and
support environmental rehabilitation efforts.
This sub-chapter will address the most fundamental legal
question: Can international law define and support the
existence of ocean-cleaning platforms in international
waters? What obligations or responsibilities, if any, would
states have toward the platforms? It is worth noting that
this analysis assumes that the purpose of the platforms
is for environmental rehabilitation, not primarily for commercial
purposes or profit. In order to define and understand
the status of the platforms under international law,
it is necessary to look to maritime treaty law. The question
of states’ obligations requires an analysis of principles
outside of treaty law.