PRESS RELEASE
Developing Countries Disagree that Hong
Kong Convention Can Prevent Global Dumping of Toxic Ships on Their Beaches
Developing countries call on Basel
Convention to become more active on end-of-life ships
Developing nations, legal experts and
NGOs that attended the meeting all voiced the concern that the International
Maritime Organization’s Hong Kong Convention will not stop hazardous wastes
such as asbestos, PCBs, residue oils and heavy metals from being exported to
the poorest communities and most desperate workers in developing counties. The
Hong Kong Convention, which was adopted in 2009, but has not yet been ratified
by a single country, has no intention of minimizing the movement of toxic ships
to developing countries.
Currently the 1989 Basel Convention is
the only legal instrument on transboundary movements of waste, and the only
legal tool developing countries can successfully use to stop toxic ships from
entering their territorial waters.
The developing countries’ statement was
supported by the Basel Action Network and the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a
global coalition of labor rights and environmental organizations dedicated to
promoting safe and environmentally sound ship recycling and preventing toxic
ships from disproportionately burdening developing countries.
“The Hong Kong Convention is radically
different from the Basel Convention as it puts the costs and liabilities of
waste management on the importing state and not the polluter – who in this case
is the ship owner”, said Ingvild Jenssen, Director of the NGO Shipbreaking
Platform. “The Hong Kong Convention does not even prohibit the dangerous
beaching method, a substandard method of ship dismantling whereby ships are
broken up on tidal beaches by untrained and unprotected workers, causing severe
pollution, injuries and deaths.”
“The Basel Convention clearly considers
that illegal traffic of hazardous waste is a criminal activity. The Hong Kong
Convention, however, does not require the criminalization of illegal transfer
of hazardous waste”, added Dr. Marcos Orellana from the Centre of International
Environmental Law (CIEL).
While human rights and legal experts
asserted that the Hong Kong Convention lacked much of the protections for
developing countries found in the Basel Convention, the European Union argued
strongly that the two instruments were equivalent. It is widely believed that
the European Union and the shipping industry wish to remove ships from the
Basel Convention.
“The European Union appears to be
towing the shipping industry line to pull ships from a strong legal regime to a
weaker one,” said Jenssen. “It is shameful that the EU on the one hand claims
to be a strong supporter of the Basel Ban Amendment for most hazardous wastes,
but when it comes to hazardous waste ships dumped on South Asian beaches by
ship owners making great profit at the expense of impoverished, desperate
laborers and the local environment, they want Basel to look the other way.”
BAN AMENDMENT FINALLY ENFORCED
Another major development of this 10th
Conference of Parties to the Basel Convention is the breakthrough decision of
the 178 countries to allow an early entry into force of law of the Basel Ban
Amendment which prohibits all exports of hazardous wastes for any reason,
including electronic wastes and old obsolete ships from developed to developing
countries.
The deal was brokered by Indonesia and Switzerland
and was strongly promoted by developing countries, China
The Basel Ban Amendment was originally
adopted in 1995 as a proposed amendment to the Basel Convention but has
recently been stalled due to uncertainty as to how to interpret the
Convention. Now following a diplomatic
working group known as the Country Led Initiative, it has been proposed that
the Ban Amendment will go into force when 68 countries of the 90 countries that
were Parties to the Convention in 1995 ratify the agreement. Already 51 of these have ratified, leaving
just 17 more needed. It is expected that
this can be achieved in 2-3 years.
“Finally, the blockade has been lifted
and the Basel Ban that has been held hostage now for many years is liberated,”
said Jim Puckett, Executive Director of the Basel Action Network. “The Ban
ensures that developing countries are not convenient dumping grounds for toxic
factory waste, obsolete ships containing asbestos or old computers coming from
affluent countries. It enforces the Basel Convention obligation that all
countries manage their own hazardous waste.”
Already 33 of the 41 developed
countries to which the export ban applies have implemented it nationally, but
today’s decision means that more countries will feel diplomatic pressure to
ratify, and countries such as the United States who have never ratified the
Convention will have to accept the ban as an integral part of the Convention
once it enters into force.
For more information:
Delphine Reuter
Communications and Research Officer
NGO Shipbreaking Platform
Source: NGO Shipbreaking Platform. 22 October 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment