해사안전법상 항로지정방식 및 관리제도 개선방안에 관한 연구

Abstract

The Maritime Safety Act sets up in the Korean waters three types of designated sea areas including the specific sea areas for traffic safety, the designated fairways, and the traffic separation scheme. In general, purpose of designation of such sea areas is to ensure safety of sea traffic by preventing ships from navigating specific areas and to reduce risk of accidents by controlling high density of traffic flows with designated routes. However, in contrast with this purpose, the current regime of designated sea areas would not effectively address this purpose. First, since designated sea areas and predetermined route are listed in different governmental documents including the presidential decree, enforcement rules, and public notice under the Maritime Safety Act, ship operators are often struggling to find relevant information for ship navigation in the designated sea areas within a proper time. Second, while in a specific designated sea areas, ship operators may have options of navigation within a predetermined route, considering their ships’ conditions and circumstances, this may cause the ship operators to decide different option from that of VTS operator. In this case, the law cannot be considered sufficiently clear so that it may be found void for vagueness under the Constitutional law. And, last, current provisions of domestic regulation for traffic separation scheme do not seem to be consistent with the international regulation on the basis of its interpretation. Thus, avoiding different application of traffic separation scheme by ocean-going vessels, this matter should be addressed in due course. In order to address these matters, this paper will discuss efficient management system for a single governmental documenting system for designated sea areas, and necessary amendment of provisions to the Maritime Safety Act of Korea.