Finland getting tough with oil spills

Economic zone to be added beyond territorial waters

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Finland will add an economic zone beyond the limits of its territorial waters to enable the authorities to intervene in illegal oil and chemical spills in an area larger than before.
      At the same time, more efficient measures of punishment for ships found guilty of such offences will be introduced.
      The notion of Finland's economic zone that has been under consideration for years finally reached its first parliamentary hearing on Tuesday. The related extensive legal package will next be discussed in various parliamentary committees.
      In a couple of weeks, a Ministry of Justice working group should also have ready their proposal for more efficient ways of punishing ships that, for example, discharge their bilge waters off the coast of Finland.
     
The cause for both these changes is the ever-increasing number of oil tankers sailing the Gulf of Finland.
      The economic zone will cover the area of the entire continental shelf of Finland, plus Finland's fishing zone almost in its entirety. It will replace these in legislation.
      "Furthermore, other possibilities of economically utilizing this zone, as well as the jurisdiction to practice environmental protection in the area, should be introduced in accordance with the coastal state rights specified in international maritime law", says Legislative Counsellor Sari Mäkelä from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
      "At present, foreign vessels can be dealt with only in Finland's territorial waters if the ship calls at a Finnish harbour. The economic zone would authorise Finland as a coastal state to introduce jurisdiction determined by the United Nations general agreement on maritime law", Mäkelä explains.
     
The economic zone would start from the territorial waters' outer limit and reach to the mid-line of the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia bordering the economic zones of neighbouring Sweden, Estonia, and Russia. In the Aland Sea, there is no room for economic waters between the Finnish and Swedish territorial waters bordering each other.
      Establishing the economic zone is part of the government package to intensify the protective measures of the Baltic Sea and to improve maritime safety.
      The law on the economic zone requires changes in 15 other laws, such as criminal law, the law on the Frontier Guard Service, and environmental protection statutes.
      For one, the practice of fining ships caught discharging oil into the sea will be intensified and extended to cover the entire economic area.
      The idea is to create a faster and more flexible administrative method to replace the present fining principle", says Legislation Manager Jan Törnqvist of the Ministry of Justice.
      At present, a report of an offence has to be filed on oil discharges. The police investigate the crime, the prosecutor takes the case to court, and the court then gives the ship a fine. This may take months, during which time the ship simply sails off to the sunset. Collecting the fine often falls through.
      In the suggested new practice the fine would simply be determined by the size of the spill, and the officials could impose a fine on the spot without any court hearings.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Illegal oil discharges on the increase (11.7.2001)
  Risk of oil spill increases dramatically in Gulf of Finland (22.1.2002)

Links:
  www.environment.fi - Surveillance of illegal discharges
  Edie weekly summaries 24/05/2002 - Baltic Sea wildlife at risk as illegal oil dumping continues

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