EXXON VALDEZ PROMPTS INDIA’S SUPREME COURT TO BLOW WHISTLE ON TOXIC
SHIPBREAKING BEACHES
No More Toxic Ships to Sail to India from USA or Europe
1 August 2012 (Brussels) – Faced with a
petition from Indian-based ToxicsWatch Alliance, a leading environmental
organization, India’s Supreme Court ruled on 30 July 2012 that end-of-life
ships containing hazardous materials, such as asbestos or PCBs, must follow the
Basel Convention rules on global movements of hazardous wastes. This ruling
means that India can no longer accept ships from Europe or the United States.
It also means that India must first be notified as to all hazardous materials
contained on-board and must approve of ship importation from all sources for
scrapping prior to vessel arrival in India. Previous to this decision and
despite India being a Party to the Basel Convention, India has long ignored its
Basel legal obligations with respect to ships.
“Finally, the Supreme Court in India has dragged
its government to face the fact that India for a long time has been violating
international law with respect to its uncontrolled imports of toxic ships for
scrapping on its beaches. It will no longer be able to do so,” said Basel
Action Network director Jim Puckett. “Hundreds of poor and desperate laborers
have been killed or exposed to hazardous chemicals as a result of the
disastrous shipbreaking practices on Indian beaches; hopefully this ruling will
be the beginning of the end of the dark ages of ship recycling.”
The beaching operations found in South Asia
are well known for environmental and human rights violations, where workers are
routinely injured, crippled and killed from explosions and occupational
exposure to hazardous substances. Just this weekend a shipbreaking worker fell
to his death from a ship beached in Bangladesh, the fifth such deadly accident
in Bangladesh this year. In 2011 alone 28 workers got killed at Alang
shipbreaking yards. The inquiries in such deaths are never made public.
India’s groundbreaking court order affirms
the United Nations Basel Convention, an international law enacted in 1989 to
prevent the dumping of hazardous waste on developing countries. Under such law,
ships cannot be imported to a Party state, such as India, from a non-Party
state, such as the United States. All hazardous wastes must also be declared by
the exporter and consented by the state of import prior to vessel movement. It
is further the exporters’ responsibility to ensure that hazardous wastes are
dealt with in an environmentally sound and safe manner – thus not dumped on
tidal beaches in countries that lack proper downstream waste management
facilities.
The court order is consistent with decisions
made at the most recent Basel Convention meeting in October 2011, when 178
countries called for rapidly implementing a full ban on the export of toxic
wastes of all kinds from developed to developing countries. During this same
meeting, Basel parties called on each other to assist developing countries in
applying the Basel Convention for ships at end-of-life.
However, the Basel meeting and the Indian
Supreme Court’s ruling are pointedly at odds with the European Union’s recently
proposed ship recycling regulation, which seeks to remove ships from existing
legislation that forbids export of hazardous wastes from Europe to developing
countries. The proposed regulation attempts to substitute existing rules with
far weaker ones under a separate International Maritime Organization regime
known as the Hong Kong Convention. The NGO Shipbreaking Platform notes that the
Hong Kong Convention is not in force and when it does become law can in no way
be seen as a substitute for the Basel Convention. In October 2011, a majority
of the Basel Parties agreed that the Hong Kong Convention does not provide an
equivalent level of protection to especially developing countries as that
provided by the Basel Convention.
“It is sadly ironic that at a time when major
shipbreaking countries such as India and Bangladesh are saying we no longer
wish to have our beaches become the dumping ground for toxic waste ships, the
European Union seems ready to abandon its former export prohibition and say to
these countries, well yes you do!” said Ingvild Jenssen, Director of the NGO Platform.
“The European proposal is sadly an obvious move to give the shipping industry
what they want most – agreement that the Basel Convention will not apply to
them.”
However positive the Indian Supreme Court’s
directives, the court decided that the EXXON VALDEZ, an infamous ship whose
arrival in Indian waters prompted the environmentalists to act, will be the
last ship to arrive in India without the Basel rules being applied. It is
unclear why the court exempted the EXXON VALDEZ from its own orders. While
Indian authorities claimed their inspection did not reveal any hazardous
materials on-board the vessel as cargo, they could not determine what hazardous
waste was contained in the ship’s structure, which most likely include PCBs,
asbestos, and residual fuels amongst many others.
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform calls on India
to fully uphold the Basel Convention with respect to the EXXON VALDEZ and to
retract its beaching and breaking authorization, forcing the vessel back to its
country of origin – the United States.
For more information, contact: -
NGO SHIPBREAKING PLATFORM
Ingvild JENSSEN, Director
+32 2 6094419
Delphine REUTER, Communications Officer
+32 2 6094418
+32 484 305 556
BASEL ACTION NETWORK
Colby Self, Director, Green Ship Recycling
Campaign
+1.206.250.5652
TOXICS WATCH ALLIANCE
Gopal Krishna
+91 98 18089660
Source: NGO Shipbreaking Platform. 1 August 2012
http://www.shipbreakingplatform.org/media-alert-exxon-valdez-prompts-indias-supreme-court-to-blow-whistle-on-toxic-shipbreaking-beaches/
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