Regulation of liability and safety in ship transport of CO2 by Rieks Boekholt

Animosity against onshore CO2 geological storage by groups of Dutch citizens means that such storage will only be permitted by the Minister of Economic Affairs to take place in suitable geological formations under the North Sea. One of the means of getting the CO2 to the offshore storage site is ship transport. The purpose of this report is to investigate how ship transport of liquefied CO2 is regulated through treaties and national legislation, in particular with respect to the safety of the ship and the liability for any damage caused by a loss of containment that may occur in the shipping process. In order to assess how well-developed the existing legal framework is, a comparative analysis is made of the regulation of the ship transport of three other substances which can cause damage: nuclear materials, oil, and liquefied natural gas (LNG).