Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive international law analysis of the European Union’s maritime safety legislation. This is a relatively novel field of activity of the EU, but its development has been very rapid. Since 1993, over 40 acts of EU law have been adopted, dealing with a variety of subjects, such as port State control, classification societies, vessel traffic management, ship construction, environmental protection and pollution sanctions. This legislation is analysed from the point of international law, notably the law of the sea and the international maritime conventions. Regional legislation in a field that is traditionally regulated primarily by means of international conventions is bound to create tensions with the related international conventions and with well-established principles of international law. This study assesses how the EU has acted as a flag State, port State and coastal State and measures the trends in this development against the international legal framework. More detailed legal analyses are offered for specific aspects of EU legislation that are considered to be particularly interesting from an international law point of view. The relationship between EU law and international law within the internal EU legal system is also analysed from the specific perspective of maritime safety law.