Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a number of international cruise ships were infected, thereby resulting in serious public health and human rights problems. Multiple difficulties were encountered in the prevention and control of the coronavirus disease onboard ships, while rule-based international cooperation in this regard appeared inefficient and ineffective. By applying interdisciplinary methodologies, including empirical research of law, policy science, and health studies, this research reviewed the legal difficulties in the prevention and control of COVID-19 on international cruise ships and sought solutions from a policy-making and strategic perspective. We found that, apart from the inherent nature of cruise ships such as crowded semi-enclosed areas, shared sanitary facilities and limited medical resources, there are also nonnegligible legal reasons affecting the effectiveness of containment measures on board. In particular, there is ambiguity and even inconsistency of relevant international norms and domestic regulations, and some of the key rules are neither mandatory nor enforceable. We conclude by suggesting that rule-based international cooperation on this issue must be strengthened with respect to information sharing and management, a more effective supervisory mechanism, clarification of key rules over jurisdiction and distributions of obligations among the port states, flag states, nationality states, and cruise ship companies.
Highlights
International cruise tourism is the fastest growing sector of the travel industry since the early 1990s
Through data retrieval and analysis, we found that there was a COVID-19 pandemic outbreak on nearly 50 international cruise ships
We found that different cruise ships, ports, and coastal states adopted different measures to prevent and control the pandemic, which directly led to controversies
Summary
International cruise tourism is the fastest growing sector of the travel industry since the early 1990s. The Britishregistered Diamond Princess cruise ship was the first one to have a major onboard outbreak, with over 700 people being infected, and the ship being quarantined at the Yokohama port of Japan on 4 February 2020, for nearly one month. The last infected cruise ship with passengers onboard during the first wave of COVID-19, the German-based Artania, docked at its home port with its last passengers on 8 June 2020 [2]. During this period, many countries closed their borders and blocked international cruise ships from docking in order to prevent and control the pandemic. Thousands of passengers were quarantined on board for weeks before coming ashore, while seafarers were trapped at sea for an even longer time before being repatriated, resulting in “a humanitarian, safety and economic crisis” as described by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) [4]
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