A EUROPEAN LAWYERS VIEW OF THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO THE DONALDSON REPORT

The Report of Lord Donaldson's Inquiry into the Prevention of Pollutio n from Merchant Shipping, of May 1994, discussed here, is a document o f the first rank of importance for all those interested in shipping sa fety and the prevention of ship-source pollution, The UK Government is called upon to take a lead internationally, regionally and nationally in these interrelated fields, and its first published response, issue d in February 1995, and many of its initiatives, examined here, sugges t that it has, for once, heeded the cries of a major inquiry. In doing so, however, as is explained, it must constantly take into account ma jor developments in the European Community. While finally, many new id eas and approaches are embraced or are being further considered by the Government, it is argued here that the whole process, by keeping stri ctly within the bounds of existing international law and by emphasisin g voluntarism (indeed, restricting strict enforcement actions to mere measures of last resort), it is somewhat behind international trends, manifested in the acceptance of the principle of mandatory ships' rout eing and ship reporting systems and in the current debate on developme nt of the Particularly Sensitive Sea Area concept.