해양환경관리법의 문제점과 개선방안

Abstract

The purpose of Marine Environment Management Act is to manage marine environment in comprehensive and systematic way. The purpose of this study is to examine the issues in the major contents of Marine Environment Management Act and give improvement suggestions. The major contents of Marine Environment Management Act are as following. Control of heavy metals and hazardous chemicals is reinforced so that they would not be discharged to coast. A comprehensive management system to control marine pollutants from land shall be established. Minister of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs shall establish and enforce Marine Environment Comprehensive Plan every 10 years in order to prevent the damage of marine environment and impairment caused by sea pollution so that clean and safe marine environment would be secured. Environment management would be more efficient and test/inspection related technology development would be promoted by enacting regulations on environment-related test/inspection and rationalizing environment management, related technical standards and operation systems. The Marine Environment Management Act also defines waste, oil, harmful liquid and harmful packaging material. It also provides with basis in the establishment of State Disaster Prevention Emergency Plan for the preparedness/response to oil pollution accident in accordance with international convention (OPRC Convention) on the preparedness/response and international cooperation on oil pollution. The issues and improvement suggestions are as following. The definition of waste oil is different by regulation and there should be a unified legal interpretation on whether waste oil would be included in waste or not. Non-inflammable waste such as pieces of glass discharged as living waste from ships should follow same discharge method applied on other wastes defined in Article 2-1 of Waste Management Act. The Division of Works in the marine pollution disaster prevention command system is scattered and it should be unified. Regulations should be revised so that role-sharing and accountability among related agencies should be clear. Marine environmental impact assessment under Marine Environment Management Act should be re-examined in connection with marine environment damage compensation, which may be claimed based on the result of marine environmental impact assessment. Considering recent increase in marine utilization/development plans, the sea area utilization discussion or sea area utilization impact assessment should be enforced with more effectiveness.