Abstract:

Unmanned vessels are the maritime sector’s agenda to reduce environmental pollution, fuel consumption and marine accidents caused by human error and to provide green shipping. The unmanned vessels have a number of benefits for the maritime sector from the points of shipowners in terms of more energy efficiency, safety of navigation and  environment. However, unmanned vessels bring some risks such as cyber attacks, job losses, negative effects concerning the skills of seafarers, and increase in the risk of cargo related incidents. The objective of this paper is to put forward strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats of unmanned vessels, to investigate legal aspects of unmanned ships and to give some suggestions related to legislative and technical regulations concerning unmanned ships. In this paper, the studies, problems and risks related to unmanned vessels in the world are investigated, Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis has been conducted, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 1982, International Maritime Organization (IMO) Conventions and other international shipping conventions relating unmanned vessels have been reviewed and some suggestions have been given on legal regulations of unmanned ships.

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