Flags of convenience in international maritime law

¶ … Flags of Convenience as they pertain to maritime oil pollution. The writer explores UN and MARPOL mandates and discusses the Flags of Convenience. The writer then ties them into maritime oil pollution and presents recommendations for how this might be solved. There were 15 sources used to complete this paper.

As the world populations continues to grow and live longer than ever before it has become apparent that natural resources must be guarded with the utmost care and protection. It is those natural resources allow mankind to survive therefore their preservation is paramount to the success of the future. One of the biggest threats to the eco-system today is the threat of oil pollution. Through spills, dumping and other accidents the oil pollution in the world has threatened significant areas of the eco-system that are depended on. In recent decades there have been measurements taken to prevent oil pollution from destroying the eco system, and many of the mandates in place are indeed strong statements of protection, however, with the advent of "flags of convenience" states those mandates have lost their clout and power, therby rendering them ineffective. Even MARPOL and the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas have been disabled by the FOC provisions. The problems with oil pollution have been aggravated for several years by FOC states and agencies, grass root organizations and other attempts are being made to change the current path of destruction being caused by FOC states and their blatant disregard for the eco system and those who depend on it.

MARPOL AND UN CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF THE SEAS

Both Marpol and the UN Convention on the Laws of the Seas implemented articles and mandates to protect the eco system and those who depend on it from oil pollution. Oil spills in the 1970's and 1980's gave a wake up call to those organizations who worked hard to remedy the situation from their positions. Maritime oil pollution is not a new factor in ecological discussions but the past few decades have seen an increase in their occurrence. In addition the fact that the world is becoming more populated and more technologically advanced has translated for the need for more oil and oil-based products. This has caused many additional transports which in turn create a greater risk for maritime oil pollution through an accidental spill or an illegal dumping.

The 1973 Convention maintained the oil discharge criteria prescribed in the 1969 amendments to the 1954 Oil Pollution Convention, without substantial changes, namely: (http://www.imo.org/Conventions/contents.asp?doc_id=678&topic_id=258#7)

To overcome the possibility of oil pollution being caused with the increase MARPOL devised several mandates to regulate the discharge and discarding of oil products at sea. These mandates include:

the total quantity of oil which a tanker may discharge in any ballast voyage whilst under way must not exceed 1/15,000 of the total cargo carrying capacity of the vessel;

the rate at which oil may be discharged must not exceed 60 litres per mile travelled by the ship; and no discharge of any oil whatsoever must be made from the cargo spaces of a tanker within 50 miles of the nearest land.

An oil record book is required, in which is recorded the movement of cargo oil and its residues from loading to discharging on a tank-to-tank basis.

MARPOL also placed a limit on the maximum allowed quantity of oil permitted to be discharged. The Convention spent years creating and then amending the mandates regarding maritime oil and its possible pollutant factors. It appeared that the world was on the right track until the members of the already existing FOC states figured out how to use the system to ignore the mandates set forth by the Convention. (Shorrock, 1998) The FOC or Flag of Convenience system was first introduced in the world following World War II. The system allows ship owners to register their ships in other nations. It was originally thought of by the United States with the shipping companies designing the plan, getting the government to assist in pursuing it and getting it put into place.

It was designed to provide revenue to developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia and give the U.S. maritime industry, which was then the world's largest, greater operating flexibility."

It was not long however before shipping companies figured out that they could register their vessels in nations with less stringent fines, fees and employment rules. The shipping comp anies and their mother nations began to use the system for abuse registering ships in other nations for less than honorable reasons.

Labor unions in the United States, Europe and Japan have long opposed the "flags of convenience" -- accusing employers of avoiding safety regulations and labor agreements in the own maritime industries by switching their ships to the laws of another country. Liberia, Panama and the Marshall islands, a former U.S. Pacific territory, thus became "home" to a huge fleet of ocean-going cargo vessels."

Recently a law suit was filed by the government of Liberia "International Registries Inc. (IRI) of Reston, Virginia, is giving the unions more ammunition in their fight. IRI operates both the Liberian and Marshall Islands maritime registries and advertises its services on the Internet. "This lawsuit is a perfect example of the inherent corruption of the flag-of-convenience system," says Bruce Vail, spokesman for the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association. The Washington-based labor union represents 4,500 shipboard engineers working on U.S.-flagged vessels, and recently lost several hundred jobs when American President Lines Ltd. (APL) registered its fleet of containerships in the Marshall Islands. Liberia's Bureau of Maritime Affairs earned more than $17 million per year in revenues from its FOC registry, making it the largest such registry in the world."

All of this leads to corruption and the corruption has been involved in not following the mandates set forth by the convention regarding maritime pollution. If shipping companies are allowed to register their vessels in other nations then the balance of the system can be thrown off. If one nation is known for having less strict regulations, and less stringent checks and balances then the lion's share of the world's shipping companies are going to register in that nation. This has the potential to create maritime oil pollution problems because they overload the system with the effort to get away with breaking the rules. (Shipping, 1997)

Long before the phrase "social dumping" was invented, the merchant fleet scoured the world in search of cheap labour and slack regulations. Thus was created the nearest thing to a global trade union."

FOCs now rule the waves. About 55% of the tonnage of the leading maritime nations flies FOCs. The biggest users of flags of convenience are the shipping industries of America, Britain, Hong Kong, Greece and (since the 1970s) Japan. Of the top 35 maritime countries, only China, South Korea and a handful of others fly more home flags than foreign ones. Panama and Liberia have the biggest fleets in the world and together account for about a quarter of total tonnage; this brings in foreign earnings worth tens of millions of dollars a year. Since registering under a convenient flag saves a fortune, the ITF's attempt to end the practice may have been doomed from the start. Shipowners pay only a few cents in tax per ton, which might work out at well under $10,000 a year, even for a large supertanker. The European Commission has calculated that tax breaks and lower labour costs save an owner about $1m a ship each year. Savings for the unscrupulous come on top of that. Some owners neglect safety and maintenance on board. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that the worst owners spend barely $3,000 a day on a ship's maintenance, while a scrupulous owner-such as a big oil company, mindful of its responsibilities and its image-would spend nearly $10,000, a difference that amounts to $2.5m a year." (Asia, 1998)

FOCs are not only a danger to the lives of seafarers on board, they are a threat to our coastline," said ITF Australia coordinator Trevor Charles." The mindset is that the ships belonging to the Flag of Convenience system disobey rules are also going to ignore the mandates about oil discharge. If they feel comfortable refusing to pay employees, and they do not feel anything is wrong with abandoning their sailors at sea, it is not a far stretch for them to over spill or illegally discharge larger quantities of oil than they are allowed to.

What's worse is that it's mostly the big ships -- bulk carriers and oil tankers -- that fly flags of convenience. At last count, in 1996, 46% of the world shipping in tonnage was FOC," he said.

THE REAL ISSUE (Braces, 2002)While issues of employment and humane treatment can be dealt with as the future marches in the issue of oil spills by FOC states is something not so easily addressed. One example of the way an FOC state has taken advantage of the system and also contributed to maritime oil pollution is the Northwestern Spain tanker that sunk just off the coast in the Atlantic.

The oil spill was so dramatic that it immediately began to destroy and paralyze fishing in the local area while Portugal waited to find out how badly their immediate eco system was going to be affected by the spill.

The spill blacked out almost 300 kilometers of Spanish coastline. It was filled with dying sea birds and washed up fish by the countless thousands who were tainted, poisoned and killed in the polluted mess following the spill.

Local Spanish fisherfolk anxiously watched whether a southwesterly wind might drive ashore yet another oil slick with another 10,000 tonnes of escaped fuel oil, provoking a major environmental catastrophe on a coastline with a delicate nature balance including 90 marine species, which is largely dependent for the sea for its livelihood."

In the spill more than 10,000 gallons of oil spewed into the sea with more than 250 birds from 18 different species being killed in the process.

The single-hulled Prestige was carrying 77,000 tonnes of oil, nearly one and a half times the amount of oil as the Exxon Valdez, which went down in 1989 off the coast of Alaska.

Madrid has launched legal proceedings against the tanker's owners and insurers, although the ship's complex web of owners and operators could make it difficult to pin down responsibility. The vessel, which sailed under a Bahamanian "flag of convenience," was owned by Liberia-registered Mare Shipping Inc. And operated by Athens-based Universe Maritime company. EU Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio said the disaster showed member states must urgently implement regulations about ship safety and stop the use of "rust buckets" and "ecological time-bombs" in seas around Europe."

This is one of the biggest risks and dangers of FOC states to the eco system regarding maritime oil pollution. The haphazard methods used to transport oil by the FOC states has set the stage for a worldwide natural resource disaster if there are not mandates and regulations put into place to stop them. (Olliver, 2003)

Chirac Vows Punishment Over Oil Spill

Dateline: PARIS

President Jacques Chirac expressed outrage Friday that patches of oil from a sunken tanker had reached French shores, and vowed to punish the "rascals" responsible.

Chirac's issued the angry comments at an impromptu news briefing came while workers in southwest France mobilized to clean the coast. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was to visit the area's sandy beaches as larger slicks of gooey heating oil began washing ashore.

Workers have combed affected beaches the past few days, picking up small clumps of hardened oil.

Officials in the southwestern Gironde region said Friday every incoming tide brought new and larger patches of oil to hundreds of miles of French beaches.

Tests have shown that some, if not all, the oil comes from the aging, single-hulled Prestige tanker that split in two and sank off the Spanish coast on Nov. 19. Many Spanish beaches already have been blackened.

Chirac said France would relentlessly pursue ship owners and crew members who try to sidestep maritime rules by registering their vessels under so-called flags of convenience _ the registration of ships in countries with lax safety, labor or tax rules.

France and Europe will not allow shady businessman, rascals of the sea, to cynically profit from the lack of transparency," Chirac said.

Captains, owners and contractors of ships" will be "pursued and criminally punished," he added.

Chirac said he wanted to express his "outrage" publicly, and instructed Raffarin to personally oversee management of the cleanup effort.

The government of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar drew stiff criticism at home for its handling of the oil slick _ notably for not acknowledging the scale of the disaster fast enough and failing to allocate adequate resources.

Chirac said "everything has been put in place to face up to the situation, " yet local leaders were bracing for more pollution.

Michel Sammarcelli, the mayor of the coastal town of Cap Ferret, known for its oyster beds, said, "I think that the worst is still to come."

He told LCI television that "millions of small patches of oil are lying on our beaches." Cleanup will be painfully slow, he said, with no option other than to spear each viscous mound and dump it into collection bags.

Image Caption: French President Jacques Chirac gestures during a news conference after the weekly cabinet meeting in Paris Friday Jan. 3, 2003. Chirac reacted angrily to the oil pollution on French coasts. French authorities closed some beaches to public access as gooey black patches of oil from the sunken tanker Prestige washed onto the country's southwestern coast. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

CHRISTINE OLLIVIER, Associated Press Writer, Chirac Vows Punishment Over Oil Spill., AP Online, 01-03-2003.

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