. The Exxon Valdez: ten years after It would hardly be appropriate to 'celebrate' the tenth anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster, but the event presents an occasion to reflect on the considerable developments within the shipping industry since the tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on 24 March 1989. The significance of the Exxon Valdez incident lies less in the actual magnitude of the spill - there have been 39 larger spills in terms of volume - than in its impact on public consciousness, particularly in the United States. How could a modern tanker, owned by the world's largest oil company, be allowed to despoil the pristine waters of one of the globe's remaining wildernesses? Exxon has certainly paid a high price for its lapse, the total cost being variously quoted at anything from US$4 billion to over US$ 9 billion. But so has the industry at large. At the level of the individual, the criminalisation of ships' masters for pollution incidents and other errors of judgement is a worrying trend which has become noticeably more prevalent since the grounding, while for shipping companies the incident raised the whole issue of corporate liability to a disturbingly higher plane. The US Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) may have been in the making before the Exxon Valdez disaster, but many of its provisions were a direct response to it. Nothing in the Act has generated as much continuing controversy as its liability provisions, and the ease with which the shipowner can find himself exposed to unlimited liability has remained the nightmare scenario for all tanker operators trading to the United States. If the purpose of OPA 90 was to concentrate the minds of the tanker industry it certainly had its effect. Indeed, some industry commentators are quoted as expressing 'qualified appreciation' of its positive results in that regard. But seen against a wider canvas OPA 90 has had some damaging consequences. It unquestionably undermined the principle of international regulation long espoused by IMO, and may be said to have encouraged European administrations to go their own way in the subsequent discussions on passenger ferry safety. Elements of the Act were clearly intended to punish the industry, and the effects of that punishment are still being felt. Perhaps in a generation's time it will be clearer whether the Exxon Valdez disaster was the catalyst which produced a permanent upgrading of operating standards or a nail in the coffin of global rule-setting. For the moment the jury is still out. .