Compulsory Insurance Under EC Directive 2009/20/EC - An Adequate Solution for Victims, or is it also Time for the Abolition of Maritime Limitation of Liability and the Establishment of an International Fund as an Insurer of Last Resort?

摘要

Compulsory insurance per se is unlikely to provide a complete solution such as to constitute restitutio in integrum, although, to some extent, it may well reduce the immediate costs consequent to an accident which are borne by society. Indeed, this point is tacitly accepted in the existing Conventions providing for compensation for pollution damage. The creation of an international fund, which in the ship-source oil pollution sphere can exist over and above, or as a supplement to, the protection of a claim through compulsory insurance, has been well utilised. This is the case in terms of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds of 1971 and 1992, the IOPC Supplementary Fund of 2003 and the still to be created HNS Fund. However, all these funds are protected by a limitation or capping of liability.