Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
662 The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law 27 (2012) 659–670
The issue of shipbreaking first presented itself to this book reviewer when a
student proposed writing a dissertation on shipbreaking in India. This led to
a stream of research questions and ideas from the reviewer, given the apparent
complexity of the issue. For example, what was the impact of the multiple
states involved—from that of the ship operator, to the flag state of the vessel
and ultimately the recycling operation? How did the problem fit within the
myriad agreements under international environmental law and the law of the
sea? The student in question dealt with a number of the reviewer’s thoughts,
although a few naturally remained outstanding, given the limited word allow-
ance available. It was therefore with great interest, and hope for further
answers, that Tony George Puthucherril’s more ambitious monograph was
recently received for review.
Puthucherril’s motivations for the study seem similar to those of the afore-
mentioned student. The beaching in tidal waters of end-of-life or redundant
vessels in the South Asian sub-continent for dismantling and reclamation cre-
ates economic opportunities but with an environmental and human cost.
Puthucherril’s primary concern is to see that this industry operates in a sus-
tainable fashion, and the author looks to national and international law to see
how it can combine and contribute to such a goal. This is briefly introduced
in the opening chapter. Chapter 1 is otherwise employed to establish some
basic rules on terminology used in the work, and the proposed structure of
the study.
Chapter 2 is taken as an opportunity to set the scene: to introduce the
shipbreaking industry and to highlight the opportunities it offers and the
problems it generates. Puthucherril’s engaging and accessible writing style
highlights the history of reclaiming materials from vessels, and the geographic
shift in the centre of such operations from the US and Europe to Korea and
Taiwan, and ultimately to India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The author is also
successful in communicating the pressing need to assess current shipbreaking
regulation since, in the middle of an economic downturn and a drive to phase
out single-hulled vessels, the number of ships being sent for recycling and
breaking is likely to increase. As many of these were not designed with their
ultimate scrapping in mind, Puthucherril then investigates the difficulties this
presents the workforces employed by the breakers, and the risks to the envi-
ronment in the inter-tidal zone. Here the account did strike the reviewer as
somewhat unbalanced in that the reader is left with a less detailed appreciation
1
IMO, Status of Multilateral Conventions and Instruments in Respect of which the International
Maritime Organization or its Secretary-General Performs Depositary or Other Functions as at
31 March 2012, available at: <http://www.imo.org/About/Conventions/StatusOfConventions/
Documents/Status%20-%202012.pdf> accessed 16 April 2012.
Book Reviews /
The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law 27 (2012) 659–670 665
included more that was of merit from the Basel Convention and the IMO
Guidelines on Ship Recycling. Puthucherril then makes 11 forward-looking
recommendations to promote the sustainability of shipbreaking, including a
proper application of the polluter-pays principle to ship operators and placing
greater expectations upon ship builders to produce vessels with their end of
life in mind.
The work ends with the text of the Hong Kong Convention reproduced in
an appendix, together with a full biography and functional index.
As has been noted in the Series Editor’s Preface and Professor Chircop’s
foreword, this is a ground-breaking work, and will be the starting point for
researchers and students for the foreseeable future. The reviewer appreciated
the multi-disciplinary and national/international approach of the study, and
felt that the principal legal regimes were given due attention. A number of the
questions the reviewer had when embarking on reading the work were
answered, and a good deal more was learnt on the way. In truth, there were
some issues that were left under-developed, and the reviewer would have
appreciated a more penetrating analysis of these issues from such a specialist.
The problems posed by flagless or re-flagged vessels springs to mind, and
whilst it is discussed in various parts of the book, it really would have bene-
fited from being all pulled together in one section and discussed in more
depth. For example, which states are subject to which obligations under the
Basel Convention in the situation described in Chapter 2 (pp. 32–33) as a
vessel makes its final journey to Alang, India, for breaking? If an Indian cash-
buyer is the last owner as the vessel moves in from international waters, and it
is flagless as it is beached, is this an import? Ultimately, however, this work is
a very rewarding read. It covers much of this fascinating and complex area,
and Puthucherril is to be congratulated for producing such a competent,
engaging and accessible entry point to the subject.
Edward J. Goodwin
Lecturer in Law, School of Law, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
OCEAN
YEARBOOK
.101!
26 Sponsored by the
International
Ocean Institute
IpDALHOUSIE
UNIVERSITY
MARINE &
ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW INSTITUTE
Edited by
Aldo Ghircop, Scott Coffen-Smout, and Moira McConnell
M ARTIN US
NITHOFF
P U B L I S H E R S
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
Contents vii
•
Maritime Transport and Security
Navies, the Law of the Sea and the Global System in the 21st Century,
Serge Bertrand 585
Admiralty Law, the Law of the Sea Convention and the Material Culture
of Historical Shipwrecks, J.N. Nodelman 599
Book Reviews
The purpose of the book is to analyze the concept of IUU fishing and
examine the measures used to address IUU fishing, including the practice by
RFMOs and states. The purpose is well fulfilled through analyses of the concept
and the legal and political bases for addressing IUU fishing and the measures to
be taken by the different actors presented, following the structure of the IPOA-
IUU. This provides the reader with a good overview of the different measures
available. However, a weakness is the danger of separated and isolated analyses
and that issues are not addressed in context. One example is the IUU concept in
itself. The analysis of the concept is interesting, but the authors should have,
based on their critique, investigated the legal consequences and usefulness of
operating with such vague concept. The focus is more on presenting the differ-
ent measures to be taken by different actors. As the authors point to the global
character of IUU fishing, a better way of handling the measures would have
been to address them thematically and not actor by actor. Chapter 8 is an exam-
ple of such a thematic approach.
Overall, the book provides an excellent overview of the different measures
available and in use at the moment. It is also positive that possible future meas-
ures are identified. However, in some chapters the presentations are too detailed.
The book is recommended for all interested in an overview of the IUU fishing
concept and measures taken to address the issue.
Tore Henriksen
Professor, Faculty of Law
University of Troms0, Norway
The focus of this book is on the need for global regulation of the industry
and on the tightly choreographed steps that have been taken by international
lawmakers and the IMO to attempt to so regulate it. The key word is 'regulate'
because, as the author points out, altogether ceasing the practice of ship recycling
would be an undesirable outcome for all involved. Local economies would be
starved of jobs and steel, and end-of-life ships would become floating hazards,
prone to destruction or dumping at sea and the concomitant leaching of hazard-
ous materials to the ocean environment through corrosion.
The book begins with an in-depth examination of the global business that
is ship breaking. This is necessary in order to lay the foundation for a critical
analysis of the proposed solutions to and legal regulation of the problematic
industry. Ship breaking and ship recycling are inseparable from the economics
of the shipping industry, the markets for scrap steel and other recoverable mate-
rials, and also the practical realities of the land-based treatment of hazardous
wastes. Compounding the issue is the fact that all of the above occurs in a glo-
balised context, with the waste generated in and economic benefits accruing to
developed and comparatively wealthier nations, while the grave harm to work-
ers and the ecological assault on coastal areas are felt entirely in the developing
world. The book accurately and poignantly articulates the complexities of the
industry and the challenges to sustainable development therein.
The book contends that it is a direct result of the globalised nature of the
industry that the regulation of ship breaking within one nation is ineffective.
The author here draws on his background in Indian national law to tell the story
of a movement born in the judiciary to improve the situation of the local envi-
ronment and the people working particularly in the Alang shipyard in the Indian
state of Gujarat. Ultimately, the Indian judiciary has backed down from its cru-
sade after watching ships and ship breaking traffic migrate to the shores of
Chittagong in neighboring Bangladesh. It is a classic case of race-to-the-bottom
globalization in an industry that has always had the advantage of sailing on to
the next available best-price unregulated option.
The Ship Recycling Convention did not emerge from the mist and fog of
international law; it has had many antecedents. The book discusses several partly
relevant international laws pertaining to the ship recycling industry, and other
seemingly less relevant laws that arguably could be brought to bear on the prob-
lems associated with current practice. Notably, however, none of those laws spe-
cifically addresses this practice or this industry to the degree required to effect
actual change.
The author acknowledges that several environmental non-governmental
organizations (ENGOs) have promoted application of the Basel Convention on
the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their
Disposal, 1989 (Basel Convention) to the import and export of ships as hazardous
waste, in this case in a typically North-South fashion from wealthier to poorer
nations, which the Basel Convention was specifically designed to regulate. The
focus of the book though, and the larger series for that matter, is sustain-
able development. The problem with the Basel Convention as applied to ship
722 Book Reviews
question, despite the years of work that went into the text, how will the Conven-
tion be implemented and will there be loopholes large enough to freely sail a
freighter through. For instance, if the information provided by a ship-owner to
the recycling facility is incomplete, or if other reasons occur at or after the
point of entry into importing state waters, can the ship be repatriated to the flag
state? Puthucherril has provided a strong basis from which to pose such
questions.
While the book asks and addresses the central question: does the SRC con-
tribute to sustainable ship recycling, it may have been more appropriate to ask:
can the SRC contribute to ship recycling? Whereas this book operates from an
assumption that the Convention will enter into force, albeit acknowledging that
"it comes too late in the day," at this juncture just a year or so later, the central
question seems to be: will the SRC ever be binding international law? As of the
summer of 2011, two years after the adoption of the convention text at the Hong
Kong Conference and now at the close of the term for signature, there are just
five signatories to the Ship Recycling Convention (being France, the Netherlands,
Italy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Turkey). None of the five have ratified and so
the Convention has no State Parties. Of those signed, none are big enough play-
ers in the industry to either make an impact on the practice or to trigger the
entry into force provisions of the Convention. Moreover, the IMO has done little
(publicly) to promote the signature and ratification of the Convention by requi-
site interested states. The Ship Recycling Convention has fallen off the radar of
the global shipping industry.
The author explains that the primary reason the Basel Convention could
not be made to apply to ship breaking was because "its application to the ship
recycling industry was strongly opposed by certain powerful shipping interests"
(p. 194). Although the author notes that the shipping industry's "line of reason-
ing is flawed" (p. 114), it is not clear why their opinion should matter. It is not fair
to say that those being regulated by or made subject to the law ought to decide
its applicability or effectiveness. Rather, it is up to the nations affected by North-
South transfers of hazardous wastes to seek to implement the Basel Convention.
Technical assistance and development of the capacity to do so is the job of the
Basel Secretariat and the Annex I countries that are bound to that existing and
enforceable international law. Why would nations ask the shipping industry
whether they would prefer to face liability and sanction for their overt environ-
mental racism?
Furthermore, if the political will to apply the Basel Convention is non-
existent, why should we presume the political motivation to make the Ship
Recycling Convention binding international law will suddenly materialize? If
by some miracle it does and the Convention comes into force and reaches an
implementation phase, will there not be equal opposition from "certain powerful
shipping interests" (p. 194) to the application of that Convention in the face
of rising costs for stripping hazardous materials and a falling price for scrap
steel?
724 Book Reviews
2. See <http://www.feap.info/economics/Tradebalance_en.asp-
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