THE HNS CONVENTION AND ITS 2010 PROTOCOL

INTRODUCTION

Although marine pollution is a general problem, the general public and politicians have mostly focussed their attention on oil pollution and in particular on spills from oil tankers, as evidenced by the Exxon Valdez (Alaska, 1989), Sea Empress (Wales, 1996), Erika (France, 1999), Prestige (Spain, 2002) and Hebei Spirit (Republic of Korea, 2007) incidents, to mention just a few major ones. Oil spills from other sources have also attracted great interest, for instance the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.