Brussels — In a
written submission to the German Government, UN Special Rapporteur Baskut
Tuncak has expressed serious concerns related to the substandard shipbreaking
practices of German ship owners, in particular fatalities and toxic chemical
exposure of workers and the local population. The Special Rapporteur on the
implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and
disposal of hazardous substances and wastes has raised shipbreaking as one
example where German companies face challenges to prevent harm caused by toxic
and hazardous substances.
“German ship owners
operate the world’s third largest merchant fleet (in terms of number of
vessels), and have been linked to fatalities and toxic chemical exposure of
workers and local populations including children, who dismantle end-of-life
ships in deadly conditions. In 2014, German ship owners sold a record high 95
percent of their end-of-life tonnage for substandard breaking on the beaches of
South Asia,” he writes.
The Special
Rapporteur calls on the Government to ensure that companies reduce the use of
hazardous substances and prevent double standards. Moreover, he calls on the
German Government “to create the much needed incentives and frameworks for
German businesses to foster a positive human rights record”. The Special
Rapporteur undertook an official country visit to Germany late in 2015, where
he met with key stakeholders on the National Action Plan on Business and Human
Rights.
“We could not agree
more with the Special Rapporteur’s conclusions. German ship owners need to take
responsibility for sustainable recycling and stop the dumping of toxic
end-of-life vessels via cash buyers in developing countries. When it comes to
end-of-life management, human rights due diligence translates into the ship
owners’ responsibility to prevent environmental pollution and the workers’
exposure to hazardous substances,” says Patrizia Heidegger, Executive Director
of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
The NGO
Shipbreaking Platform calls on the German Government to raise the issue with
the shipping community and to address their unacceptable practices in the
National Action Plan. In 2015 alone, 23 large commercial vessels from Germany
ended up in substandard shipbreaking yards, making German ship owners the fifth
biggest dumpers globally. Several German ships were broken down in Bangladesh
where environmental pollution, hazardous waste dumping and working conditions
are the worst: „Apart from Germany’s largest ship owner Hapag Lloyd, which has
a progressive ship recycling policy, the rest of the ship-owning community has
remained shamefully inactive with regards to finding sustainable and safe
solutions to the issue.“ The Platform has been able to link fatal and severe
accidents in Indian and Bangladeshi shipbreaking yards to the demolition of
German vessels.
Source: recycling
portal. 27 May 2016
http://recyclingportal.eu/Archive/23623
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