Marine Inquiries: Balancing the "no-blame"investigation with the regulatory investigation to achieve marine safety outcomes

Abstract

In recent years a new style of incident investigation has emerged to challenge the continued relevance of the marine inquiry jurisdiction. Known colloquially as "no-blame safety investigation", safety investigation agencies exercise an investigative response to serious marine incidents. Safety investigation is fundamentally concerned with finding the causes of the incident in order to prevent its recurrence, and the attribution of blame is expressly not one of its functions.

By contrast, the marine inquiry jurisdiction requires a consideration of fault as well as causation, and sometimes results in criminal, civil and administrative liability consequences.

The legal regimes associated with each style of maritime incident response are compared and contrasted and it is suggested that the marine inquiry regime, whilst it has presently fallen out of favour, has characteristics that offer greater utility and possibly superior marine safety outcomes than the safety investigation regime alone.