ABSTRACT
Oil pollution from tankers has plagued coastal states, and since the mid-1920s attempts have been made to eliminate oil tanker pollution through international regulation. This tremendous progress in oil tanker pollution control in the 1970s was due primarily, if not exclusively, to the persistent environmentalist pressure and leadership provided by the United States within the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The United States had used the threat of unilateral legislation for ships entering its ports in connection with the 1973 and 1978 IMO conferences. Oil contamination from tankers is caused either by accidents such as groundings, collisions and explosions, or by operational discharges in connection with normal ballasting procedures whereby empty oil-cargo and fuel tanks are filled with seawater. The alternative of ship-boardretention of oily wastes had been considered in the prewar period. The environmental leadership of the US brought about the substantial improvements in international oil pollution regulation in the 1970s. The US hegemony was clearly of a coercive nature.
