Oil Pollution and the Coastal State

It will be the purpose of this paper to pose and answer this question...How has the legal competence of a coastal state been strengthened with respect to that state\u27s ability to prevent marine oil pollution? The question by implication presupposes that a certain change in legal competence is in fact occurring. The legal and historical baseline from which to gauge this gradual change will be established by reviewing past milestones in oil pollution law. A closer examination will then be made of recent evolutionary changes in both international and national oil pollution law subsequent to the Torrey Canyon Disaster of 1967. The very global nature of marine oil pollution predicates eventual conflict between national interests and existing international law