Although the British Petroleum disaster is the most recent, older oil spills are more useful for the purposes of this essay, for more research and statistics pertaining to these events are available now. Take, say, the oil spill that occurred off the Malaysian Island of Langkawi in 1992 (The Nagasaki Spirit oil spill). The Strait of Malacca in Malaysia is the nerve centre for South East Asia/Asia Pacific regions. (Dow, 1999, p.74) Since it is the busiest shipping lane in the world, it poses the challenge of navigability, making oil tankers prone to collision or mishaps. But government authorities have put in place a comprehensive marine transportation safety plan. Contingency plans for oil-spills in the form of response plans are also put in place. Special attention is given to the route taken by tankers in transit from Middle East. Identifying the need for protecting coastal human inhabitants (especially fisher-folk), efforts has been made to alleviate hazard to this group in the event of an oil-spill. The small-scale fisher-folk who live along the coast-line, are one high-risk group, for they “depend on coastal and fishery resources that are at risk. Assessment of social risk, or vulnerability, is based heavily on understanding the source of the fishers’ exposure: their dependence on vulnerable resources. Any such assessment, though, pays little attention to factors that shape the coping capabilities in fishers’ communities and households, strategies that can influence the scale of losses.” (Dow, 1999, p.74)
Hence, one could see both successes and failures in the Malaysian government’s preparedness for oil-spill. In the area of covering all bases in protecting human population living in coastal areas, the plans were not well thought out. Coming back to the OPA ’90, the stringent provisions and punitive measures under the Act have shown promise. (Richman, 2010, p.2) The Kodiak Island Borough v. Exxon Corp. case, which is considered a landmark in American legal history, is a case in point. The Supreme Court in 1999 considered state and federal statutory law against the common law of admiralty to come to the conclusion that Alaska municipalities could continue a claim against Exxon “for the cost of services diverted from their citizens in order to participate in the environmental cleanup effort necessitated by the Exxon Valdez oil spill….Recent changes resulting from oil pollution legislation constitute a logical step in the evolution of admiralty jurisdiction and are appropriate for an age in which society is recognizing its fragility and the complexity of its dependence on the natural environment.” (Weller, 2002, p.71)
Hence, we see the OPA ’90 bearing fruit in giving the general public some sort of protection. The implementation of the OPA was not a straight-forward affair, though, for many of its provisions were in conflict with state, federal or admiralty jurisdictions. At the crux of the debate over environment protection laws such as this is a perceived injustice. The question is: Why should the environment and innocent human inhabitants share the consequences of a hazard created by profit-oriented private companies. Moreover, those who are at high-risk for getting affected by oil spills are those who are least related to the private enterprise. In light of this unfairness, the Supreme Court rightly observed that oil spills are a great cause of concern to all coastal city or township. Its effect on the estuaries and the marine life is also acknowledged. The Supreme Court went on to note that