Marine Pollution

The discharge, dumping or release of oil, chemical waste, plastic debris, sewage or other pollutants into the ocean or another marine environment, most commonly from a ship, an offshore drilling platform, or land-based industrial or municipal outflow, causing or threatening harm to marine ecosystems, fisheries and coastal communities. The principal international instrument governing vessel-source marine pollution is the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, known as MARPOL, adopted by the International Maritime Organization and setting binding limits and prohibitions on a ship's discharge of oil, noxious liquid substances, sewage, garbage and air emissions; a violation of MARPOL's discharge standards is prosecuted by a signatory flag state or port state as a criminal offense against the ship's owner, operator or responsible crew member. Marine pollution is treated as legally and regulatorily distinct from generic water pollution, which is governed by a country's domestic freshwater and inland-waterway environmental law rather than by the specialized international maritime pollution-prevention framework that governs vessel-source discharge at sea.