Autonmous surface ships, in view of existing legislation, and the need for a new governance

Abstract

The race of autonomous vehicles is moving with fast leaps either on land, airborne, underwater and recently waterborne as well. Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships are expected to make its first test on 2018 in Finland. The first commercial vessel is M/V Yara Birkeland, first she intended to operate with minimal crew before turning to fully autonomous on 2018. The main issue concerning the applicability of Autonomous ship and the introduction to the maritime industry is not related to technicality, as a big percentage of technical knowledge already exists, but is related to the legal and regulatory framework which will govern and regulate the operational aspects.

The main issue to concentrate on is liability issues, both financial and criminal liability. Though financial liability will be solved without much of a change, sadly a higher value of compensation will be involved. It will make insurers more reluctant to give the same existing terms as of the conventional ships, because there will be no one onboard to intervene in case of machinery failure, which is a weak point in comparison with crewed ships, but in the end, it will be adjusted to a higher insurance premium.

This paper discusses the real complication related to criminal liability which results from collision cases developing to death of crew, where the punishment may include imprisonment. How can the punishment be imposed, if there is no Captain onboard to arrest, and the supposed to be Captain is sitting thousands of miles away in a control center and responsible for possibly more than one ship at a time. In addition, it aims to explore the expected conflict of law due to the integration of Autonomous ship into maritime industry.

Keywords: autonomous surface ship, criminal liability, financial, conflict of law, control center.