The legislation meant to regulate ship
recycling practices, in particular the EU Ship Recycling Regulation and the
International Maritime Organisation's Hong Kong Convention, mainly based on
flag state jurisdiction will neither be able to solve the problems of
substandard shipbreaking nor enforce the polluter pays principle on ship
owners, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform stressed.
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform published a
briefing paper titled What a difference a flag makes — Why ship owners'
responsibility to ensure sustainable ship recycling needs to go beyond flag
state jurisdiction.
The analysis of the link between flags of
convenience (FOCs), in particular "end-of-life flags" and substandard
shipbreaking practices, shows that FOCs are likely to undermine the
implementation of the polluter pays principle by making it easy for ship owners
to circumvent legislation by flagging-out to a non-party or a non-compliant
flag.
In conclusion, the briefing paper asserts
that solutions urgently needed to ensure sustainable ship recycling must go
beyond flag state jurisdiction in order to close the loopholes created by the
FOC system.
According to the Shipbreaking Platform,
most ship owners circumvent existing legislation meant to protect in particular
developing countries from hazardous wastes present within the structure of
end-of-life vessels, and are therefore not held accountable for polluting and
dangerous shipbreaking practices.
Only a small number of ship-owning
companies have taken voluntary measures to ensure the clean and safe recycling
of their obsolete vessels.
For the sake of higher profits, most ship
owners sell their end-of-life vessels with the help of a cash buyer to a
shipbreaking yard that lacks proper infrastructure and safe working conditions.
It is a choice of profits at the cost of people and the environment.
The EU has a particular responsibility to
provide solutions to the shipbreaking problem as about 40 per cent of the
world's commercial fleet is owned by European companies and one third of the
tonnage broken every year in substandard yards in South Asia was sold by
European companies.
Source:
fiji
times. 15 April 2015
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