Marine plastics: fragmentation, effectiveness and legitimacy in international lawmaking

It hardly needs stating that much of the plastic rubbish that is now found in our oceans comes from land-based sources. From plastic bags, to toothbrushes and plastic nurdles plastic enters the oceans through, for example, discharges or dumping in rivers, from waste dumped on land blowing into watercourses, and from land-fill sites which have been built too close to the coastline and are damaged by storms. This paper explains the weaknesses in the current law on marine pollution from land based sources and activities that paves the way for such widespread pollution of our oceans before examining possible legal solutions to this problem. Potential solutions to this problem are assessed using insights from literature on fragmentation and on effectiveness and legitimacy of regimes. In constructing this analysis the paper thus develops understandings of when and why the adoption of treaties may be both appropriate and effective