Glaringly absent from the IMO draft Convention is any attempt to address the human rights, health and environmental consequences of the global trade in hazardous end-of-life ships, and the clarion call, made as early as the late 1980s, for the minimization of transboundary movements of wastes in particular to developing countries. The IMO effort has continuously evaded this most fundamental issue of concern about shipbreaking practices today – that is, the gross cost externalization of risk and harm to some of the world’s poorest communities in developing countries.
"The Convention as it stands at the cusp of signing, is simply too weak to provide any economic or regulatory incentive to prevent the exploitation of weaker economies and desperate labour forces by those wishing to find cheap disposal routes for high-risk wastes," said Ingvild Jenssen, Platform coordinator. "It’s a paper tiger, with little bite and no teeth," she said.
Despite being the first to document and reveal the extent and nature of the problem, the human rights and environmental NGOs’ concerns and suggestions have been largely ignored by the IMO. Instead the shipping industry lobby has been allowed to use the IMO and its new Convention as a vehicle to avoid adhering to principles of environmental justice embodied in the Basel Convention.
While the beaching method has been labelled as the method that has created the most problems for the environment and human health, and 170 countries have strongly recommended phasing out this breaking method under the Basel Convention, the IMO does not address the fact that hazardous materials can not be contained on a tidal beach, and that it is impossible to ensure basic security measures such as cranes to lift heavy cut blocks and sheet steel on a muddy beach.
"The IMO Convention is a scandal, and will likely actually legitimise what should be criminal dumping," said Jim Puckett from Platform member organisation Basel Action Network. "Sadly, unsustainable and immoral business as usual is being rewarded while businesses that have improved their operations and are offering green ship recycling will be disadvantaged and perhaps be forced to close" he continued.
For more than 10 years shipbreaking has been the issue of public debate. Still, no real changes to the unacceptable situation on the ground have taken place, instead the "race to the bottom" continues and the polluters, i.e. the shipowners, continue to avoid bearing the costs of protecting human health and the environment. We demand that this scandal be reversed.
Already many governments are having grave doubts that the IMO Convention represents too little too late. Most notably, the doubt of the European Union is palpable in the reading of the European Commission Green Paper and the European Parliament’s response to it. It is likely also that when the Basel Convention Parties review whether or not the new Convention represents the desired "equivalent level of control" that the new IMO Convention will be found wanting.