Maritime Governance and Policy-Making : The Need for Process Rather than Form

The evidence for systemic failure in the governance of the maritime sector is clear from the widespread inability of many shipping policies to address the problems of environmental, security, safety and economic concerns central to the sector. The causes of this failure in governance and policy-making stem to a large extent from the inexorable spread of globalisation which has accelerated in recent decades and exacerbate the inadequacies of the shipping industry. In particular the substantially changed role of the nation-state as a maritime authority and policy-maker has generated friction between shipping as a truly globalised industry and the nationally defined legislative and governance authorities This paper examines the role of process in policy-making in the maritime sector and how issues of flexibility, movement, change, and the increasing speed of these changes can be accommodated in a new governance framework that takes account of the changes that come with globalisation.