ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Pollution
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1683372
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Marine Environmental Protection: Challenges, Solutions and Perspectives Volume IIView all 62 articles
Charting a Course for Marine Sustainability: Legal and Policy Coordination in Developing Countries Amidst Trade and Shipping Turbulence
Provisionally accepted
- Anhui University, Hefei, China
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Trade fluctuations and maritime sanctions have a range of potential adverse impacts on the maritime sector, including port congestion, operational restrictions, fuel supply disruptions and others, leading to increased fuel consumption and higher pollutant emissions, and even a greater risk of marine pollution incidents, further challenging marine sustainability. Developing countries, especially Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), are particularly vulnerable to such trade and shipping turbulence. This study aims to explore how developing countries can leverage multilateral legal frameworks to advance marine environmental protection in response to the challenges posed by trade and shipping turbulence, focusing on enhancing legal and policy coordination under international law. Specifically, the study addresses the following key questions: (1) how trade and shipping turbulence generates regulatory and compliance risks that threaten marine sustainability; (2) how developing countries can strengthen their legal and policy coordination within the International Maritime Organization (IMO); (3) how developing countries can align trade and marine environmental goals in the the World Trade Organization (WTO); (4) how developing countries can reinforce port state and flag state control as legal enforcement tools; (5) what differentiated legal and policy recommendations can be drawn for LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDS. The analysis concludes that achieving marine sustainability requires embedding equity safeguards into IMO and WTO processes, strengthening regional cooperation frameworks, and enhancing national legal capacities. In terms of concrete measures, developing countries need to actively participate in international rule-making processes and advocate for technological and financial support to mitigate these adverse impacts, thereby chart a course for marine sustainability.
Keywords: Marine sustainability, legal and policy coordination, Developing Countries, trade and shipping turbulence, multilateral legal frameworks, Marine environmental protection, International Law, International Maritime Organization (imo)
Received: 11 Aug 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 NIU and Xing. 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: QI NIU, 23031@ahu.edu.cn
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