ABSTRACT
In parallel with the case study below that tracks the ICAO's partially successful local pollution regulation, this chapter addresses the history of the IMO in environmental standard setting and management from the early 1970s to present. It pays special attention to a consistency of long delays among agreement to act, consensus on a convention or modifications to an existing one, and the entering into force of the agreement. The chapter aims to establish what local air, water, and solid pollution from ships and shipping the IMO has been able to regulate or set standards for, and how those agreements were reached. Marine pollution was gradually recognized as a serious global environmental problem between 1950 and the early 1970s. The main focus by the early 1950s was accidental oil spills from tankers and operational discharges of oil from ships more generally.
