The good, the bad and the ugly: unmanned ships.

The world is interconnected through global trade on the basis of a transportation industry. And, it will continue to grow, with a predicted rise of nearly a third in seaborne-trade towards 2030, and with increases in tonne-mileage up to 74,000 billion over the forecast period. In other words, the ocean will experience substantial increases in traffic, pressure will get much higher and risk of marine accidents and incidents at sea will persist.

It is estimated that roughly 90 percent of marine casualties and incidents caused by...