Re: [mediavigil] Press Note: Why the IMO Ship Recycling Convention is a Failure

 

palashcbiswas,

 gostokanan, sodepur, kolkata-700110 phone:033-25659551

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From: Gopal Krishna <krishnagreen@gmail.com>
To: mediavigil@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 11 May, 2009 18:37:29
Subject: [mediavigil] Press Note: Why the IMO Ship Recycling Convention is a Failure

*Press Note*
**
*Why the IMO Ship Recycling Convention is a Failure*

In the week of May 11-15 in Hong Kong, a new international treaty is
expected to be adopted and signed.  That treaty, created under the auspices
of the International Maritime Organization, was meant to address the
international shipbreaking crisis defined by:

• the environmental injustice of the worlds poorest communities and
countries bearing a disproportionate burden from the hazardous waste,
pollution, and other risks and harm posed by shipbreaking;
• the lack of producer/ship owner responsibility to internalize the costs of
such risks;
• the disastrous waste management practices commonly employed in today's
largest shipbreaking yards, such as the practice of "beaching" – a method
that endangers life, limb and the environment; and
• the lack of green, toxic-free design in the shipbuilding industry that
would more appropriately eliminate the use of harmful substances and make
ships more safely recyclable.

Despite repeated proposals over the last three years from civil society and
labor organizations for treaty language that would address these prime
facets of the shipbreaking crisis, the Convention now drafted fails on all
counts.

Environmental Injustice – Unlike the Basel Convention and the Basel Ban
Amendment's principled stand of protecting developing countries from
economically motivated dumping of hazardous wastes on their territories, and
despite the request from the Basel Convention Parties to ensure an
"equivalent level of control" to that required by the Basel Convention, the
IMO Convention was designed without even the most basic of Basel Convention
obligations in place (e.g. "state-to-state notification and consent prior to
export, right of port states to prevent export/import, obligation to create
recycling facilities nationally, obligation to minimize transboundary
movement of wastes etc.)

Producer Irresponsibility – Despite widespread acceptance in most industrial
sectors today for application of the "Polluter Pays" principle and "Extended
Producer Responsibility" in order to internalize the costs and liabilities
inherent in a ship, the IMO Convention only requires ship owners to conduct
and maintain an inventory of hazardous substances onboard ships and to
notify their flag state when a ship is ready for recycling.  Despite
shipowners benefitting economically from the life cycle of a ship, at the
end of its useful life, the Convention gives shipowners a free ride to pass
on the liabilities of the toxic materials to impoverished communities and
developing countries.  It is a passport to cost externalization and human
exploitation.

Disastrous Waste Management Practices Condoned – One would think that the
most obvious improvements a new treaty would demand would be mandatory
technological criteria for safe and environmentally sound recycling of old
ships.  The fulfillment of these requirements would best be enforced via
third party audited certification programs to ensure a level playing field
globally for all ship recycling countries.  But the IMO Convention has only
made recommendations via guidelines for improving conditions in the
shipyards and worst; the guidelines fail to condemn the practice of running
old ships up on beaches and cutting into them on the sands.  The beaching
method provides no containment for pollutants and no solid footing or access
for lifting cranes or emergency equipment.  Finally, the Convention has
nothing to say at all about the waste management operations downstream of
the immediate ship recycling yard.  This head in the sand approach can allow
for horrific management of asbestos, PCB contaminated materials and other
hazardous wastes.

No Mandate for Greening Design – Despite a mention of the substitution
principle in the preamble to the Convention, there is any later reference to
this principle, nor a requirement based on it, for a constant review of
harmful substances used on ships with a view to substituting them with less
harmful substances where possible.  There are also no mandates to otherwise
construct ships to make them easier and more safely dismantled.

The fact that the IMO Convention fails to address the most pressing problems
with shipbreaking today, but rather consists only of bureaucratic mechanisms
confined to identifying hazardous substances on a ship, and requiring
countries to authorize their shipbreaking facilities, means that the
Convention will do nothing to prevent the disproportionate dumping of toxic
waste ships on developing countries and little to change the horrific status
quo of 90% of today's deadly and polluting shipbreaking operations.  It
stands as an exercise designed to give pretense to dealing with the
exploitive conditions, while continuing to allow the shipping industry to
profit from their continuance.
For Details: Gopal Krishna, Mb: 9818089660, Indian Platform on Shipbreaking


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