Effetti del traffico marittimo sugli organismi marini

The title of this volume, concerning the outputs of the interdisciplinary research on «Sustainable development of maritime transports in Mediterranean», refers to the meta-legal concepts of «Mediterranean» and «sustainable development». The first one represents a sea, a place as well as the study subject of social and natural sciences. Therefore, the same concept of «Mediterranean» can be disjointed in several cases, according to different approaches and disciplines, but it can be reassembled as a unitary meta-legal fact, recognized and qualified by law. The concept of «sustainable development» is transversal and metalegal as well, and implies the provision of a reasonable and necessary limit to the development (in accordance with skill, diligence and prudence), meant as the possibility of human making («tecne») or rather as the acquired level of technique in a specific historical moment. This limit to the possibility of human making can be spontaneously accepted by civil society members or imposed on them through the law. The «shall be» imposed by law aims, first of all, at qualifying a fact with the purpose of the effect (the legal situation of duty, power etc.) that it imputes to individuals. But the legal rule also aims at regulating the exercising of legal situations attributed on the basis of economic and social principles and, with reference to sustainable development, in the perspective of the predictable result which will be obtained using and directing the technique. The legal science, indeed, studies and arranges legal rules, assessing validity and effectiveness in formal terms of strength and value of the legal sources or acts providing those rules. The substantial validity and effectiveness of a legal rule, instead, are verified through the concrete experience and the history, and concern ethics as well as economic, political and social sciences. Having said, the criterion of this interdisciplinary research has not been based on collecting legal and marine biology works on the subject of Mediterranean marine environmental protection. The research has indeed tried to open up a possible dialogue between natural and social sciences, reconstructing the international, Community and national legal regulations with reference to the following micro sector-based themes: Community politics about Mediterranean development, risk organization and management, safety legal and technical rules for vehicles and facilities, fishing. By reconstructing legal dates, it emerges that the legal and technical regulating process provides for principles of prevention of foreseeable hazard risks but it has not fully considered and enforced the principles of sustainable development yet, which instead takes unforeseeable risks into account, for a larger navigation safety and marine environment protection in the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, it seems necessary a more incisive action of maritime traffic regulation and control, also making the sustainability of development as the main criterion for assessment of reasonableness, proportionality, foreseeability and flexibility of legal and governmental choices.