Navigation management: post-Donaldson

This paper examines the Donaldson Report on the inquiry into prevention of pollution from merchant shipping, with respect to its findings on marine navigation management in Chapters 13–16 of the Report. The paper supports Donaldson in advocating the mandatory use of radio transponders to identify ships and to monitor their navigation, but is highly critical of Donaldsonʹs reasoning for rejecting a ‘blanket ban’ safety margin around the UK coastline with respect to ships having significantly large quantities of pollutants onboard, and for rejecting wider active Marine Traffic Control or Management (MTC) for reducing both strandings and collisions.