The HORIZON TRADER, a 42 year-old American built and operated container ship, was beached earlier this month at the notorious shipbreaking site of Alang, India, despite the last ship owner Matson, Inc. having sold it for recycling in the US.

The dead vessel contains hazardous materials, making its final voyage from the U.S. to India illegal waste trafficking under the Basel Convention, which controls the transboundary movements of hazardous wastes. The vessel likely contains polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which also makes the sale an illegal export of PCBs from the US. According to environmental justice group Basel Action Network (BAN), responsibility not only falls on the former U.S. ship owner, but also on the five countries that failed to uphold their obligations to stop the renegade vessel along its four-month journey.

BAN photographed the HORIZON TRADER on 2 September 2015 as a U.S. tug named GAUNTLET (also known as MISS GAUNT) towed it out of the Port of Brownsville, Texas. BAN tracked the vessels along the four-month journey through Trinidad and Tobago, Namibia, and Mauritius before arriving in Indian waters on 30 December 2015.

While BAN notified authorities in each country prior to the vessels' arrival, and called on authorities to uphold their legal obligations under the Basel Convention, each country failed to intervene to halt the illegal transport and prevent it from being run aground in Alang. The HORIZON TRADER arrived in Alang, under the name D.V. ("dead vessel") TRADER and was beached on 8 January 2016.

Some have argued that the Basel Convention does not effectively control the export of hazardous end-of-life ships because it's difficult to determine when a ship actually becomes waste along its journey. However, in this case, the "dead" ship was defined as waste before it departed the U.S. The failing lies not with the law but rather with the countries that ignored their obligations under international law: Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Namibia, and India, all of which are Parties to the Basel Convention.