Pollution at Sea
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“TO THE GREAT DAMAGE AND COMMON NUISANCE OF ALL LIEGE SUBJECTS OF OUR LADY THE QUEEN”: OIL POLLUTION CLAIMS AND PUBLIC NUISANCE
“TO THE GREAT DAMAGE AND COMMON NUISANCE OF ALL LIEGE SUBJECTS OF OUR LADY THE QUEEN”: OIL POLLUTION CLAIMS AND PUBLIC NUISANCE
Simon Rainey QC1Why is my letting my draught horses stale and deposit droppings outside a coffee house in a London street like my letting my vessel improperly discharge oil at sea off the English (or, indeed, the Welsh) coast? Why is my operating a brothel or other bawdy house in a residential district like my reducing the sailings on my ferry service between Gravesend and Tilbury or like my operating an unseaworthy single-hulled tanker which breaks up, fully laden with crude oil, in bad weather off the English coast? Answer: in just the same way as my showering local residents with stone chippings from blasting operations at my quarry is like my building a jetty which causes excessive siltation in the River Thames. In other words, they are all instances of public nuisance.2