Author: Nicola Mulinaris

NGOs world-wide [3], the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, the Centre for International Environmental Law and the European Parliament [4] have all exposed the fatal weakness of the Hong Kong Convention’s standards and enforcement mechanisms. Furthermore, the majority of the 191 countries party to the UNEP Basel Convention, which controls the global trade of hazardous wastes, including end-of-life ships, and bans the export of toxic wastes from OECD to non-OECD countries, found that the Hong Kong Convention fails to provide an equivalent level of control to the Basel Convention as it does not prevent the dumping of toxic ships in developing countries [5].

With its failure to outline robust environmental and social standards for the sound management of the many toxic substances contained in end-of-life ships, the Hong Kong Convention falls short of the Basel Convention and the more recent EU Ship Recycling Regulation [6]. It sets no requirements, beyond compliance with national rules for the management of hazardous wastes downstream. It endorses beaching, a practice long associated with pollution and health hazards for both workers and local communities. It also lacks provisions to protect workers engaged in shipbreaking operations, who often face precarious work environments, lack of protective equipment and limited access to medical facilities. 

Many beaching yards boast that they already comply with the Hong Kong Convention [7], but independent audits of these facilities by the European Commission have identified several serious problems that disqualify them from the EU List of approved ship recycling facilities [8]. Investigative journalists from BBC, French TV, DanWatch and Dutch program Zembla have also uncovered unacceptable conditions at these yards. 

Another major flaw inherent in the Hong Kong Convention is that the responsibility for its enforcement is only put on the end-of-life vessel’s flag state and the recycling state. In reality this means that grey- and black-listed end-of-life flag states such as Comoros, St Kitts and Nevis and Palau, notorious for their poor implementation of international maritime law and particularly popular for last voyages to the South Asian beaches, along with local authorities in South Asia which have done little to prevent the death of more than 430 workers since 2009, will be in charge of enforcement. They will be responsible without any independent control mechanisms in place and despite the fact that most end-of-life vessels are owned by European, East Asian and North American companies that possess more rigorous safeguards for proper waste management and human rights in their home territories.

Beaching yards in India and Bangladesh that already claim they comply with the Hong Kong Convention are backed by ship owners keen to maintain a cheap disposal route for their end-of-life vessels where the costs related to managing hazardous materials safely, including residue oils, asbestos and mercury, are not factored in. Instead the costs are born by workers, local communities and sensitive coastal environments. The harms caused include toxic exposure and loss of lives, limbs, livelihoods and biodiversity. Ship owners pay neither to prevent this harm in the first place, nor to compensate for or mitigate it. Externalising costs in this manner renders disposal of end-of-life ships artificially cheap resulting also in less economic incentive to design out toxic materials in the first place.