Is the Polar Code living up to its purpose? A case study of the Polar Code as regulating Arctic shipping

Abstract

The Arctic region holds valuable resources, and with the melting of sea ice shipping is thought to increase. The polar waters contain safety hazards that one will not encounter while sailing elsewhere, and that is why shipping in polar waters need to be regulated differently than shipping in other regions of the world. The Polar Code was adopted by IMO in 2015 and came into force in 2017. It is a set of mandatory goals aimed at regulating polar shipping to increase safety onboard and protect the environment. This thesis looks into the Polar Code negotiations and analyses the Polar Code in light of institutionalism by doing a case study of actors from Norway, Russia and China. Actors from all of these cases were present during the Polar Code negotiations, but to different degrees active. There is wide agreement that the Polar Code is a needed and useful set of regulations, but that it is a work in progress and still need improvements.