The ratification by
France on 2nd July 2014 of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe
and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, which had been preceded in May
2014 by the Republic of Congo’s accession to the convention, may pose questions
on what are the different processes through which states become parties to the
convention, and on what these processes generally entail.
IMO’s member states
unanimously agreed at their 24th Assembly in December 2005 to develop
international regulations for the recycling of ships. The new convention was
developed and was eventually adopted on 19th May 2009 by a diplomatic
conference in Hong Kong, China.
The Hong Kong
Convention contains the provision for governments “to sign the convention
subject to subsequent ratification”. This provision is often found in
international conventions and is a mechanism whereby a state can give an early
signal of its support for a particular convention before going through the full
process required by its constitution for committing itself to that piece of
international legislation. Accordingly, the Hong Kong Convention was open for
“signature subject to ratification” from September 2009 to August 2010. In that
period, five countries signed the convention, namely France, Italy, the
Netherlands, St Kitts and Nevis, and Turkey. It is probably worth noting that
signatures without ratification do not contribute towards the convention’s
entry-into-force.
States usually
become parties to a convention either through signature subject to ratification
followed by ratification, or through “accession”. In most political systems
ratification or accession to an international convention is a complex and time
consuming process that may typically involve: the formal translation of the
adopted text by the Ministry of Justice; the formulation of new national
regulations; evaluation of the effect the new regulations may have on exiting
legislation; the approval of the text of regulations proposed by the Ministry
of Justice; remarks to be considered by all stakeholder ministries; in
parliamentary systems approval by the appropriate parliamentary committee;
signature of the Minister; signature of the Prime Minister; government decision;
formal approval by the parliament; and finally submission to a relevant UN body
through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Clearly, the commitment that is needed
to execute such a process requires considerable political will in support of
the subject convention.
Ship recycling
requires multifaceted governmental involvement on matters of: labor,
environment, maritime transport, and commerce. Consequently, compared to the
process described above, the ratification/accession process for Hong Kong
Convention necessitates even more difficult inter-ministerial consultations,
typically involving ministries of Shipping or Transport; Environment; Labor;
Industry (as is the case in Bangladesh); Steel (as is the case in India); and
Commerce. Inevitably, it is to be expected that for most countries it would
take longer to ratify/accede to Hong Kong Convention, compared to conventions
of narrower interest.
The entry into
force provisions of Hong Kong Convention specify that it will enter into force
24 months after ratification/accession by not less than 15 States, representing
40 per cent of world merchant shipping by gross tonnage, with a combined
maximum annual ship recycling volume not less than 3 per cent of their combined
tonnage.
Norway was the
first country to accede to the Hong Kong Convention on 26 June 2013. A number
of years before, Norway had been responsible for introducing ship recycling to
the agenda of the IMO and also had submitted the first draft version of the
text of the convention that formed the basis for its development.
Thereafter on 19
May 2014, the Republic of Congo deposited its instrument of accession, by a
happy coincidence on the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the convention.
The Republic of Congo’s accession has additional significance, because, whilst
not a major flag or recycling State, Congo was one of two states that had
strongly opposed the recognition of Hong Kong Convention as equivalent to the
Basel Convention at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention
in October 2011.
An obstacle to
ratification or accession had existed until very recently for all member states
of the European Union. In the European Union the Directorate General for the
Environment of the European Commission is the competent authority for enforcing
the European Waste Shipment Regulation for the “transboundary movements of
hazardous waste”. This regulation, which implements the Basel Convention
together with its ban amendment, had originally been considered to be a
suitable legal regime for regulating ship recycling, and will remain so in the
European Union until the new European Regulation on ship recycling is fully
applied within the next three to four years. Consequently, the European
Commission arrived at the opinion that, until the European Council adopted a
formal decision on this matter, EU member states should refrain from ratifying
or acceding to Hong Kong Convention as this could violate the European Waste
Shipment Regulation.
This obstacle was
finally removed by the European Council Decision of 14 April 2014 (2014/241/EU)
authorizing member states to ratify or accede to Hong Kong Convention, “for the
parts falling under the exclusive competence of the Union”. This opened the
road to France’s ratification, which was deposited on 2 July 2014. Following
the eventful recycling of the former French aircraft carrier “Clemenceau” in
2006, France contributed greatly to the development of the convention and to
its guidelines.
Currently, a number
of governments are either working towards accession/ratification of the
Convention. Following the recent adoption of the European Council Decision and
the French ratification, other EU Member States are expected to proceed soon,
possibly starting with Belgium, as stated in its press release of 26 June 2014.
China and Turkey, whose ship recycling industries are largely compliant with
the technical requirements of the convention, are making progress towards the
convention with Turkey being almost ready to ratify and China having made some
progress towards accession. Japan is also expected to move towards accession
possibly in the coming year.
The first condition
for entry into force of Hong Kong Convention, requiring 15 states to ratify or
accede, should not be too difficult to satisfy. On the other hand the second
condition requiring no less than 40 percent of the world’s fleet by gross
tonnage will be harder to achieve without the support of one or more of the top
five open registers, namely Panama, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Singapore, and
Bahamas whose combined fleet makes up 50.1 percent of the world fleet.
Note that the
combined fleet of the 28 States of the European Union (including the various
dependent territories that are often excluded when states ratify conventions)
forms 20 percent of the world fleet, while China together with Hong Kong make
up 11.4 percent of the world fleet (all fleet data according to the 2013 World
Fleet Statistics published by IHS). Lastly, without India’s accession, the
third condition on ship recycling volume cannot be met in practice. Happily,
the Indian ship recycling industry has made big improvements since 2007 and is
already regulated by its domestic regime that replicates the technical
requirements of the Hong Kong Convention. It remains to fully convince the
industry, and the state and federal governments, that accession to the
convention will be to their long-term benefit.
Source: maritime-executive.
By Nikos Mikelis. 7 July 2014
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