Merchant Shipping Act 1988 (repealed)

Prospective

15 For section 1 substitute—

“1 Interpretation of Part I.

“1 (1) In this Part of this Act—

(a) “the Liability Convention” means the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage 1984;

(b) “the Fund Convention” means the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage 1984;

(c) “the Fund” means the International Fund established by the Fund Convention; and

(d) “Fund Convention country” means a country in respect of which the Fund Convention is in force.

(2) If Her Majesty by Order in Council declares that any State specified in the Order is a party to the Fund Convention in respect of any country so specified, the Order shall, while in force, be conclusive evidence that that State is a party to the Convention in respect of that country.

(3) In this Part of this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—

• “the Act of 1971” means the Merchant Shipping (Oil Pollution) Act 1971;

• “damage” includes loss;

• “discharge or escape”, in relation to pollution damage, means the discharge or escape of oil from the ship;

• “guarantor” means any person providing insurance or other financial security to cover the owner’s liability of the kind described in section 10 of the Act of 1971;

• “incident” means any occurrence, or series of occurrences having the same origin, resulting in a discharge or escape of oil from a ship or in a relevant threat of contamination;

• “oil”, except in sections 2 and 3, means persistent hydrocarbon mineral oil;

• “owner” means the person or persons registered as the owner of the ship or, in the absence of registration, the person or persons owning the ship, except that, in relation to a ship owned by a State which is operated by a person registered as the ship’s operator, it means the person registered as its operator;

• “pollution damage” means (subject to subsection (4) below)—

(a) damage caused outside a ship by contamination resulting from a discharge or escape of oil from the ship,

(b) the cost of preventive measures, and

(c) further damage caused by preventivemeasures;

• “preventive measures” means any reasonable measures taken by any person to prevent or minimise pollution damage, being measures taken—

(a) after an incident has occurred, or

(b) in the case of an incident consisting of a series of occurrences, after the first of those occurrences;

• “relevant threat of contamination” means a grave and imminent threat of damage being caused outside a ship by contamination resulting from a discharge or escape of oil from the ship;

• “ship” means any ship (within the meaning of the Act of 1971) to which section 1 of that Act applies.

(4) In this Part of this Act “pollution damage” does not include any damage attributable to any impairment of the environment except to the extent that any such damage consists of—

(a) any loss of profits, or

(b) the cost of any reasonable measures of reinstatement actually taken or to be taken.

(5) For the purposes of this Part of this Act—

(a) references to a discharge or escape of oil from a ship are references to such a discharge or escape wherever it may occur, and whether it is of oil carried in a cargo tank or of oil carried in a bunker fuel tank; and

(b) where more than one discharge or escape results from the same occurrence or from a series of occurrences having the same origin, they shall be treated as one.

(6) References in this Part of this Act to the area of any country include (in addition to its territorial sea)—

(a) in the case of the United Kingdom, any area within the British fishery limits set by or under the Fishery Limits Act 1976; and

(b) in the case of any other Fund Convention country, the exclusive economic zone of that country established in accordance with international law, or, if such a zone has not been established, such area adjacent to the territorial sea of that country and extending not more than 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of that sea is measured as may have been determined by the State in question in accordance with international law;

and references to pollution damage in the United Kingdom shall be construed accordingly.”