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Indonesia's aspiration to become a global maritime fulcrum lacks synergy between its maritime security and its maritime economy. This paper explores the dynamics between maritime security and maritime economy by investigating the current practices of maritime security inspections at sea and how they affect Indonesian shipowners. It also seeks to find solutions for more efficient and corruption-free maritime security inspections. To understand the Indonesian shipowners' perspective on current practices of maritime security inspections at sea and how they impact businesses, the authors conducted an interview, a focus group discussion and a survey involving the Indonesian National Shipowners Association (INSA). From these methods, the authors found a common issue - that merchant ships operating in Indonesian waters face stoppages and demands for paying illegal fees during maritime security inspections at sea. Consequently, these inefficient and corrupt maritime security inspections are costly to Indonesian shipowners because they lower the ship's productivity, increase voyage costs, give rise to claims related to contracts of affreightment and reduce profit. To improve efficiency and deter corrupt practices during maritime security inspections, this paper proposes a few solutions such as consolidating inspections, changing the mindset of maritime security agencies, and improving transparency and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Astrakhan governor himself received an order from the collegium "to gather from the Astrakhan customs house detailed and thorough information about how many goods, and what kind, came into Astrakhan from Persian ports, and were released from Astrakhan to Persian ports, and what duty was collected on what. Russian merchants would receive the right of duty-free trade in Persia upon presentation of authenticated letters from Astrakhan signed by the Astrakhan governor. Issues involving trade with Persia played a highly important role in Russia's state policy toward that country in the eighteenth century. For example, when General Levashov informed the Astrakhan governor, Ivan Izmailov, of Arapov's appointment as consul, he requested, first, that the Astrakhan city hall notify all merchants engaged in trade with Persia of the relevant provision of the treaties, so that no one could plead ignorance. [Extracted from the article]

W.K. Clifford is widely known for his emphatic motto that it is wrong, always everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. In fact, that dictum and Clifford's condemnation of a scheming self-deceptive shipowner sum up how his ethics of belief is most often remembered and how it has been subsequently interpreted. In contrast to other recent interpretations, we argue that the motto is misleading as a guide to Clifford's position. It is best understood as essentially a rhetorical flourish. Moreover, in important ways the scheming shipowner is not stereotypical of the kind of believer Clifford thought blameworthy. A careful study of Clifford's various writings on the ethics of belief finally reveals him not to be an evidentialist in the Humean tradition. Rather, inspired by Charles Darwin's work in moral psychology, he applied an evolutionary-functional virtue ethics to the doxastic realm. This perspective allows a fruitful examination of his engagement with contemporaries like Matthew Arnold. It also allows us to recognize him as a predecessor to modern attributionist accounts of blameworthy belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines latent capabilities in marine systems and proposes that latent capabilities can support large-scale emergency response, in which the demand for assistance exceeds the capabilities of dedicated emergency infrastructure. Latent capabilities are functional resources that were neither intended nor recognized during the design phase. Latent capabilities represent an opportunity for ship owners to adapt to swift changes in operating context, responding to new demands that emerge quickly. To enable exploitation of latent capabilities, we suggest a method for identification and implementation of latent capabilities during contingency planning. As a proof-of-concept for latent capabilities, the response to the Macondo oil spill is used as a case study. The case shows that advanced offshore vessels provided latent capabilities that were decisive in shutting down the leaking well. Enabling factors and challenges for this approach are explored, including the impact on vessel economics, the role of the managing organization, and other constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past analysis of marine accident investigations has revealed that inadequate risk assessment conducted on board ships lead to maritime accidents. The International Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution Prevention (ISM Code) provided an international standard for the safe operation of ships with risk assessment as one of the principal precepts of the Code. However, effective implementation of the process of risk management cannot be achieved without the active involvement of competent seafarers on board ships. This paper reviewed a compilation of empirical research publications regarding ship safety to infer the possible reasons for the failure of risk assessment by focusing on areas (training and competence, procedural approach, process verification, culture and organisation) that affect seafarer practices. The findings highlighted the challenges faced by the maritime industry that warrant attention at the organisational level. The challenges were classified as: Lack of adequate training and competency in non-technical skills; Failure of a procedural approach to risk management; Risk perceptions, attitudes, and cultural/organisational factors; and Process verification: lack of ownership and identification of safety objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the global liberal outlook of the major European maritime powers and the international framework of international organizations and regimes already in place made any strictly regional Common Shipping Policy, under the auspices of the European Community, superfluous. Alliances among Shipowners and associations ran across the member- and non-member divide, and were informed by global economic considerations such as the oil shock, competition from South East Asia and structural changes in the sector, rather than integrationist efforts. Instead, the Commission came to act as an interlocutor alongside a liberal alliance, with particular European aims within a global context. This alliance was an unlikely one, seeing Greek–Norwegian hopes in Britain as a possible guarantor of a liberal shipping regime within the enlarged Community in the early 1970s. In the end, the European response to the crisis and structural changes of the 1970s proved unsatisfactory, and only those who fully embraced the 'new' rules of the game (like Greece) reaped the benefits of the structural changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arrest of ship regime is a critical aspect of global shipping and international trade. In settling maritime or trade disputes, arrest of ship is a crucial pre-judgment instrument usually deployed to secure the appearance of ship owners and it also acts as security for the claimants' claim. This paper critically examines the arrest regime in Nigeria to determine the possibility of the country becoming the destination of forum shopping for maritime dispute resolution. This paper submits that a liberal and comprehensive arrest legal regime is pivotal in establishing Nigeria as the hub of global ship arrest adjudication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the underwriting attitude of international commercial banks in lending shipping loans. By adopting the analytic hierarchical process methodology, the underwriting attitude is captured to understand how bankers would deal with shipping loans in response to the current lengthy recession. We find that bankers focus on the criteria of corporate recourse (CR) in their decision-makings. Of the CR factors, the financial strength of shipowner is the most important factor, followed by the shipowner’s business history and the bank-firm relationship. With the current underwriting attitude, the shipping sector may have limited access to shipping loans of international commercial banks due to low corporate ratings caused by the long recession and the nature of industry itself: volatility, fragmentation, capital intensity, high leverage, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fluctuation of freight rates revenue and the fierce volatility of oil cost are two of the most key risk exposures in the shipping industry. However, neglecting the dynamic interrelationship between the cost and the revenue markets leads to the overestimation or underestimation of hedging ratios, which makes the present single hedge strategy less efficient. This paper proposes an optimal combination hedging model for a shipowner trading the derivatives of crude oil and dry bulk freight rates simultaneously with the cross-market economic linkages. We investigate the impacts of spillover transmission, structural breaks, and dynamic conditional correlations (DCCs) on the optimal combination hedging trading. It is found that the significant volatility transmission between oil future and dry bulk forward freight agreements suggests a high dependence of the Capesize sector on the oil fluctuations, which means that the dynamic cross-market interactions have significant impacts on the aggregate risk exposures. Furthermore, the DCCs incorporating structural breaks significantly improve the performance of the combination hedge, which is superior to the two separate hedging strategies. Our study offers new insights into how the freight rates and oil markets relate to a combination hedging, which can be used to promote the risk management in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How vessel crews perceive safety on board (shipboard safety) is a useful indication for the general safety level. In this study a theoretical model was explored, involving factors that could possibly influence shipboard safety. Based on a survey questionnaire (n = 244), safety climate, shipowner efficiency demands and regulatory activities were investigated as influencing factors. Structural equation modelling gave support to the theoretical model and the findings illustrate that simultaneous involvement of various levels of the maritime system (crews, shipowners, regulators) can be effective for safety improvements. The study indicates that shipboard safety is affected by actions and prioritization by external actors through safety climate. It suggests that the maritime industry will profit from monitoring safety climate as part of the ongoing risk considerations, as a supplement to reactive parameters such as accident statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of supplier evaluation and selection has been discussed for several decades in various industries but is rarely researched in maritime supply chain management. To maintain a ship’s seaworthiness, shipowners must expend money and provide all supplies that are required for repairs and consumption on board, including parts, stores, bunkers and lubricators. These expenditures can amount to over tens of thousands of dollars; thereby, an efficient and effective supply chain system for the provision of supplies is a top priority for shipowners. The evaluation and selection of suppliers is critical to the success of this system. This study aims to establish an appropriate and common approach for maritime supplier evaluation and selection. Because decision-makers in shipping companies typically confront an uncertain environment, we adopt a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (FMCDM) approach to analyse the behaviour of decision-makers and obtain the best maritime supplier. Meanwhile, via a survey for Taiwanese shipping companies, we also found that supply capability and risk control are the most important criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stringent ship emission regulations under IMO's (International Maritime Organization) MARPOL Annex VI are a main driver to consider liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a ship fuel. Research into LNG as a marine fuel saw a strong growth in recent years, but no study has analyzed in a systematic way the level of convergence among the findings presented in the wide range of studies. In order to fill this gap, this paper seeks to perform a systematic review to synthesize the findings of 33 published studies on the use of LNG as a ship fuel. The aim is not only to obtain a much broader understanding of the current perspectives and challenges for applying LNG as a bunker for ship propulsion, but also to identify the gaps and weak points in the literature which could suggest future research. Moreover, given the output of the synthesis, the paper presents an extensive decision-making framework for shipowners when deciding on a fuel switch for their fleet from conventional oils to LNG in order to achieve a level of conceptual development beyond that attained in individual studies. In addition, the study also identifies the important role of ports in facilitating and encouraging the large-scale adoption of LNG in the maritime industry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]