PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Pollution
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1682990
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Marine Environmental Protection: Challenges, Solutions and Perspectives Volume IIView all 35 articles
The Marine Community of Shared Destiny Driving Paradigm Shift in Vessel Pollution Governance: An Integrated Governance Framework for Sustainable Ocean Development
Provisionally accepted
Yuhong Chai
Yue Wu*- Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
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Within global economic integration, the shipping industry handles over 80% of global trade and is a key driver of economic growth. Consequently, marine vessel pollution control has become an issue of increasing significance. While the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) and related treaties and agreements establish foundational provisions for vessel pollution control, they fall short in addressing the contemporary challenges posed by such pollution. China's concept of the Marine Community of Shared Destiny (MCSD) offers a novel ideological framework for global ocean governance. Under this framework, a new governance structure for marine vessel pollution control is being established—integrating hard and soft law, shared responsibility, and technological empowerment. This structure aims to transition relevant conventions from voluntary guidelines to mandatory constraints, enhance transparency and credibility through blockchain technology, and ultimately achieve multi-stakeholder governance to establish a new order for controlling marine vessel pollution. The MCSD concept, by creating new systems and using technology, can effectively balance countries' own interests with the shared interests of the world. It offers a practical reform plan that is both sound in theory and workable in practice. This provides useful guidance for making the shipping industry more environmentally friendly and improving how the world manages shared ocean resources.
Keywords: Marine Community of Shared Destiny (MCSD), Vessel-SourcedPollution, MARPOL Convention, Governance framework, Marine EnvironmentalProtection
Received: 10 Aug 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chai and Wu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yue Wu, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
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