The Supreme Court restated that under the Basel Convention, there is an obligation cast on the State of import to ensure that ships are free of hazardous substances prior to import. It is well known that Alang does not have the facilities to properly manage hazardous materials such as asbestos, PCBs and oil residues. As interpreted by the rulings of the Indian Supreme Court, the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking [1] demands that the Indian Ministry of Environment stop falsely interpreting the Basel Convention controlling transboundary movements of hazardous waste as not applying to the materials in the structure of a ship.
“In line with the 2003 court order it is clear that the SS Blue Lady entered Indian territorial waters illegally. Now India must restate this decision and echo the Bangladeshi authorities’ refusal of the vessel in February this year”, said Gopal Krishna, NGO Platform representative in India.
In the wake of findings made by a special committee established by the Supreme Court of India revealing alarming indications of asbestosis and death by accidents now afflicting thousands of workers in the world’s largest shipbreaking yards in India, [2] the NGO Platform demanded an immediate halt to the export and import of ships to developing countries that have not been first pre-cleaned to remove hazards. The international Basel Convention to which India is a Party, strictly controls the movement across borders of hazardous wastes has called for a total ban on exports from developed to developing countries. India is further also party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as key ILO guidelines which protect the human rights of workers in the shipbreaking yards, in particular their right to health. None of these guidelines are currently complied with at the shipbreaking yards of Alang.
The NGO Platform further calls upon Germany, the exporting state, to comply with its Basel obligations and re-call the vessel. Despite a long campaign by environmental organisations to prevent the scrapping of the ship which is thought to contain 1240 tonnes of asbestos and hundreds of tonnes of other materials contaminated with toxic persistent organic pollutants known as polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, German authorities have chosen to not act. SS Blue Lady must be re-called to Germany and German authorities need to hold accountable Star Cruises Ltd for fraudlessly having claimed that the vessel left the port of Bremerhaven for re-use.
“It is clear that the Alang yards currently do not operate in an environmentally sound manner and without generating a massive violation of workers’ rights” said Ingvild Jenssen, coordinator of the NGO Platform. “The global shipping industry and governments that allow its illegal behaviour are increasingly seen as bearing the guilt of those hundreds of deaths in Alang and elsewhere where they send their trash to be disposed of out of sight and out of mind” Gopal Krishna added.
Many more vessels will in the coming years have to be decontaminated in OECD countries before export. According to an EU study on the consequences of the global ban on single hull oil tankers over 2,000 tankers will have to be broken within ten years. The NGO Platform calls for immediate follow-up by the European Commission to ensure that enough capacity to fully decontaminate these, and other vessels, in Europe is created and that adequate assistance be provided with the aim of improving the working conditions at the South Asian shipbreaking yards. As Commissioner Dimas said himself “now is the time to act”. It must be made mandatory that shipowners take full responsibility for their waste by fully decontaminating their vessels before sending them to Asian shipbreaking yards.