Transboundary Oil Spill Liability and Compensation Workshop, Portland, Maine, United States

The Head of External Relations and Conference Department, Thomas Liebert, participated in a transboundary oil spill liability and compensation workshop, hosted by the US Coast Guard, from 10–12 September 2019 in Portland, Maine, United States (U.S.).

The workshop saw the participation of national and international stakeholders involved in oil spill response and compensation, namely the U.S. and Canada Coast Guards, Transport Canada, the National Pollution Funds Center (NPFC) and the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund (SOPF), together with the IOPC Funds, the International Group of P&I Associations (IGP&I) and ITOPF.  It was a follow-up to a first workshop on the same subject, organised in 2017 and part of the ongoing cooperation between the U.S. and Canada on preparedness and response to marine oil spills.

The participants recognised that a tanker oil spill causing transboundary damage in Canada and the U.S. could create liability and compensation issues involving the respective legislations of both states and the international regime set up by the CLC and Fund Convention.

Discussions at the event, therefore, focused on the challenges and possible solutions to deal effectively with such types of incidents and participants shared lessons learned from previous experiences.  Mr Liebert provided input based on the IOPC Funds’ experience of handling claims arising from incidents affecting more than one state.