To
Shri Derek O
Brien,
Chairman,
Parliamentary
Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture
Subject- Why India should not accede to Hong Kong
Convention and refrain from giving effect to its provisions through Safe and
Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships Bill, 2018
Sir
With reference to the
draft Recycling of Ships Bill, 2018 and the meeting of the stakeholders to
discuss held on 14.06.2018 in 'Sagar Manthan', Room No: 5419, Fourth Floor,
Transport Bhawan, Parliament Street, New Delhi-110001, to discuss the draft
Bill, we wish to submit the following as to why India should not accede to International
Maritime Organisation (IMO)’s Hong Kong International Convention for the safe
and environmentally sound recycling of ships and refrain from giving effect to
its provisions through Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships Bill,
2018:
1.
We submit that a nexus of transnational
ship owners’ lobbies and cash buyers have succeeded in Bangladesh in getting a
bill titled, 'Bangladesh Ship Recycling Bill, 2018,' passed from Bangladesh Parliament
in January 2018. The Bill was introduced by Mr Amir Hossain Amu, Industries
Minister of Bangladesh and it was passed by voice vote.
2.
Having engaged with the Inter-Ministerial
Committee on Shipbreaking, Ministry of Steel in the past, we submit that these
very transnational ship owners’ lobbies and cash buyers have been instrumental
in getting the supervision of ship-breaking industry which was under the Steel
Ministry from 1983 till July 2014 shifted under the supervision of the Ministry
of Shipping. We still feel that logically, the ship-breaking industry should be
with the Steel Ministry given the fact that once the ship beaches there is no
role for the Shipping Ministry.
3.
We submit that the same transnational
ship owners’ lobbies and cash buyers are behind the incorporation of provisions
of Hong Kong International Convention for the safe and environmentally sound
recycling of ships in India’s Draft Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of
Ships Bill, 2018
4.
We submit that the stakeholders (rights
holders) include India’s ship breaking /recycling industry, migrant workers,
village communities, fishing community, environmental groups, labour groups,
secondary steel re-rolling mills, manufacturers of secondary steel
products. All these rights holders have
not been consulted.
5.
We have been a petitioner in the Hon'ble
Supreme Court and have appeared before Hon'ble Court constituted Committees in
this regard.
6.
We submit that some foreign global
shipping lobbies are at work to ensure that India ratifies IMO's "Hong
Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling
of Ships, 2009 (the Hong Kong Convention)" which has not come into force
because shipbreakers, environmental and labour groups of India, Bangladesh and
Pakistan are opposed to it as it is anti-environment, anti-workers and contrary
to supreme national interest. These
lobbies are working to do indirectly what they have not been able to do directly
through the incorporation of provisions of this Convention in the Recycling of
Ships Bill, 2018.
7.
We submit that the death toll in the
ship breaking/recycling plots of Gujarat’s Alang beach continues to rise. The
recent death of two migrant workers of Madhya Pradesh in Gujarat's Alang ship
breaking yards at plot no. 32 in Bhavnagar is a case in point, we wish to
inform you that in the morning of 14 March, 2018, Shri Balram Dhulia (40) and
Shri Ramnayan Rajbhar (42), natives of Madhya Pradesh were asphyxiated to death
due to gas leakage. It has been reported that “The incident occurred at plot
number 32 where the duo had gone into an empty tank of the ship that was
anchored for breaking”. Fire brigade officials took the duo’s bodies out and
took them to Talaja Civil Hospital, where they were declared brought dead, as
per The Times of India, Rajkot edition. The information received from Bhavnagar
reveal that between April 2018 and May 2018 there has been 4 more deaths.
8.
We also submit that earlier Shri Ashok
Yadav, who was migrant worker from Bihar employed in the ship breaking activity
at plot no. 14Alang, Bhavnagar, Gujarat too had died. As per Hindustan newspaper’s Bhagalpur
edition, the dead body of the worker reached Chidaiyawad village under Bariyaarpur
police station of Munger, Bihar on the evening of 18 September, 2017 after 72
hours of his death. So far some 500 workers have died in the ship breaking
activity since 1983 as per official records. Prior to these recent deaths, in
the year 2017 two workers died on 4th March and 16th March. Even as per
official data on an average some 10 workers have died annually in the past
decade at Alang. As a result of accidents during ship-breaking at least two
workers died in 2016 and eight workers died in 2015. In 2014, 18 workers died
in accidents in Alang shipyards. We wish to know whether Ship Breaking Scrap
Committee is doing anything to ensure that such deaths do not occur in future
even as there are reports about Japan International Cooperation Agency getting
involved to upgrade the existing infrastructure at Alang and to modernise the
Darukhana ship-breaking facility in Mumbai.
9.
We submit that unlike Ministry of Steel
which regularly uploaded the minutes of the meetings of the inter-ministerial committee
on ship breaking, the inter-ministerial Ship Breaking Scrap Committee under
Ministry of Steel has not done so since July 22, 2014. The minutes are crucial
to know whether shipping companies and
ship breaking industry and relevant public institutions are in compliance with
the Shipbreaking Code, 2013, Basel Convention, the only international/UN law on
ship breaking as of today. These minutes could reveal whether Ferrous Scrap
Development Fund is being used for welfare of workers in the shipbreaking
industry.
10.
We submit that global shipping companies,
especially from Europe are the most influential players besides Japan. They get
such laws made which cater to their interests ignoring environmental and
occupational health costs. In the past 10 years the situation has worsened with
regard to worker's health and environmental health in the ship breaking
industry in Gujarat.
11.
We submit that environmental groups have
been demanding that the ship breaking activity should shift from the beach,
which is a fragile coastal environment, which is cherished in developed
countries.
12.
We submit that there is no regulatory pressure
on shipyards to comply with all of the current conventions in employees’
safety, better working conditions and environmental consciousness. The ship breaking
industry is operating as if there is law holiday. They violate every rule in
the rule book. Violation of laws is the norm. Compliance with laws does not
happen even in exceptional cases.
13.
We submit that the Hong Kong Convention
of International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has been drafted to safeguard the
interests of ship owning companies at the 2nd Annual Conference on Ship
Recycling. It is regressive, anti-environment and anti-labour. IMO’s Convention
conflicts with the UN’s Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movements of
Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal and the Basel Ban Amendment, which is the
only international law in force to regulate ship-breaking. IMO’s Marine
Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) must ensure decontamination of the beaches
and suggest a phase out period for the industry to move away from a fragile
coastal environment like beaches in order to protect the health of the local
community and their ecosystem. Hong Kong
Convention promotes status quo with regard to ongoing poisoning of the beach.
14.
We submit that toxic waste generated in
the process of ship breaking/recycling has not been dealt properly in South
Asian beaches/shipyards so far. The use of asbestos in new construction
projects has been banned for health and safety reasons in some 60 countries
including developed countries or regions, including the European Union,
Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and New Zealand. WHO and ILO have called for its
elimination. But in Alang some 60-65 % of the workers are exposed to asbestos
without any remedy and compensation in sight. Village communities and
agricultural fields in the vicinity have become dumping ground of hazardous
wastes including asbestos wastes.
15.
We submit that the wrongful act of
locating polluting ship breaking activity in Alang, Bhavnagar, India,
Chittagong, Bangladesh and Gadani, Pakistan when there was no environmental
sensitivity must be undone. MEPC’s failure to address this problem and allow
status quo will defeat the very purpose for which the committee has been
constituted. Protection of the marine environment of these beaches is the
fundamental reason for MEPC’s existence.
16.
We submit that on these South Asian beaches
like those in Gujarat’s Alang, vulnerable migrant workers break end-of-life
ships amidst exposure from hazardous materials like asbestos, persistent
organic pollutants and heavy metals without any environmental and occupational
health security. The International Labour Organization has classified
shipbreaking on beaches to be the dirtiest, most degrading and dangerous job.
17.
We submit that the role of IMO must be
restricted till the ship remains a ship or a floating structure. Once it is no
more a floating structure, the role of IMO should cease. Working at the yard
should be addressed by ILO while handling of hazardous waste should be based on
Basel Convention norms. It is critical of the treaty because it does not assign
definite role to ship owners, builders, classification societies or suppliers.
The only role prescribed for ship owners is to submit the inventory of
hazardous materials. It does not prescribe remedy or precautions to be taken
against environment damage resulting from ship recycling operations
particularly of oil seepage.
18.
We submit that if one compares the IMO
treaty with the pre-existing regulations it is clear that the former is quite
regressive and not forward looking. These regulations do not permit ships meant
dismantling without gas-free for hot work. They do not exclude war ships and
government vessels. The relaxation on these two issues in IMO regulations will
act as a loophole to divert ships for recycling from regulated countries to
non-regulated countries.
19.
We submit that IMO’s callous towards the
plight of the workers and is simply pandering to the whims and fancies of the
ship owners from developed countries. It does not provide for prior
decontamination of hazardous materials and wastes in the country of export.
Notably, the Convention does not include directions that are mandatory for the
protection of environmental and occupational health. Biodiversity of the marine
environment and adverse impact on its ecological status has not been factored
in the ongoing shipbreaking activity.
20.
We submit that IMO’s treaty is
essentially very status quoist is the manner in which beaches of India,
Bangladesh and Pakistan is allowed to be contaminated just because the
shipbreaking activity commenced in an era when environmental protection was not
a priority. The shipbreaking activity to be truly sustainable must be taken off
the beach and these beaches must be remediated and restored for posterity as is
done in the developed world. The current practice of beaching method seems
economically viable due to cost externalization of pollution and adverse health
impact.
21.
We submit that IMO is pretending
ignorance about manifold increase in the pollution level on these beaches and
disappearance of local biodiversity.
22.
We submit that Hongkong Convention fails
to address the four fatal flaws of the beaching method for ship breaking that
is practiced in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan: cranes cannot be placed
alongside ship, lack of access by emergency vehicles and equipment, no
possibility for containment and coastal zone, intertidal zone is
environmentally sensitive and managing hazardous wastes in the intertidal zone
can never be environmentally sound.
23.
We submit that all end-of-life ships
broken in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India is on tidal beaches whose soft sands
cannot support crucial safety measures such as heavy lifting or emergency
response equipment and which allow pollution to seep directly into the delicate
coastal zone environment. No country in the developed world allows ships to be
broken on their beaches.
24.
We submit that most ship owners choose
to sell their ships for significantly greater profit to substandard yards
operating in countries without adequate resources to provide safeguards and
infrastructure to manage the dangerous business. Ship breaking/Recycling cannot
be done in a safe and clean way on a beach without proper technologies and
infrastructure, and enforced regulations.
25.
We submit that IMO has failed to
communicate categorically to the Marine Environment Protection Committee of IMO
that Hongkong Ship Recycling Convention does not meet the bar of equivalent
level of control and this backward step is unacceptable. Environmental health,
Labour and human groups have been demanding remediation of these beaches of its
toxic contamination because of ship-breaking activity to retrieve and protect
the fragile coastal environmental and public health of communities and their
livelihoods.
26.
We submit that transnational ship
owners’ lobbies and cash buyers have been able to neutralize the opposition
from shipbreaking industry in Bangaldesh. They are in the process of doing so
in India as well. Till recently they were opposed to this Convention
shipbreaking/ship recycling because the IMO treaty has been prepared under the
influence of the ship owners and ship owning countries designed to transfer the
obligation of observing the entire regulations on ship recycling countries.
27.
We ask: how dumping of hazardous
end-of-life ships can become beneficial in the long run. Why should preparation
of Inventory of Hazardous Material (IHM) await ratification of regressive
Hongkong Convention?
28.
We submit that dry docking facility in Gujarat’s
Alang alone can safeguard coastal environment for the current generation and
posterity. Environmental groups demand dry dock method in place of polluting
beaching method for breaking/recycling the ships. The burden of creating dry
docking facilities can be jointly shouldered by the beneficiaries like ship
owners, shipbreakers, IMO and the governments concerned. Environmentally Safe
Ship breaking/recycling cannot be carried out through the beaching method.
29.
We submit that there is a need to impose
ban on international trade in hazardous wastes and disapproves of Hongkong Convention
that attempts to undermine hard earned Basel Convention under the influence of
seemingly ungovernable shipping industries.
30.
We submit that European version of
Hongkong Convention adopted by the European Council on June 27, 2013 was under
the influence of European shipping industry. European Parliament’s stature has
been eroded by its approval of new EU Regulation on ship recycling. It has
deprived itself of the opportunity to solve the environmental and occupational
health crisis facing Alang, Bhavnagar, India, Chittagong, Bangladesh and
Gadani, Pakistan. It has succumbed to those undemocratic institutions which
remain addicted to externalizing environmental and human health costs to the
shipbreaking beaches of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. These business
enterprises have manipulated the legal and political system in India,
Bangladesh and Pakistan to ensure that most European owned vessels broken on
these beaches of South Asia by registering under non-EU flags such as Panama,
Liberia and the Bahamas.
31.
We submit that ship owners have been
hoodwinking legal regimes in place by not declaring their intent to dispose the
vessel whilst at a European port to avoid extra costs of using safe and
environmentally sound ship recycling facilities. The new EU Regulation’s
pretensions of banning breaking of EU flagged ships on tidal beaches stands
exposed as it does not provide for prevention of ship owners from jumping
register to a non-EU flag prior to sending their ships for breaking in order to
avoid falling under the requirements of the new EU law. Beaching sites will not
be approved for EU listing, which prevents EU flagged ships from being beached.
But by merely choosing to register their ships under non- EU flags.
32.
We submit that there is nothing new in
European Council’s acceptance of the European Parliament’s proposal to bind all
ships calling at EU ports to have an inventory of hazardous materials (IHM)
that are contained within the vessels’ structure, a prerequisite for clean and
safe ship recycling. It could have easily have been done under the pre-existing
laws.
33.
We submit that efforts of the large
shipping nations such as Greece, Malta, Cyprus who blocked measures for
ensuring traceability of hazardous wastes dumped in developing countries and
clearly linking liability for these wastes to the polluter along with ship owners
constitutes an inhuman exercise.
34.
We submit that European Council’s
exemption to end-of-life ships from the European Waste Shipment Regulation is meant
for protecting developing countries from the dumping of hazardous wastes and
incorporating the UN’s Basel Convention and its Basel Ban Amendment is indeed a
breach of the European Union’s legal obligations to uphold the Basel Convention
and its Basel Ban Amendment compelling 27 European Member States that are
Parties to the Basel Convention to accept the fait accompli of committing illegality and of acting in non-compliance
with their obligations under international law.
35.
We submit that EU has ratified and
implemented the UN laws into the national legislation of all EU Member States
via the European Waste Shipment Regulation. The latter forbids the export of
hazardous wastes from the EU to non-OECD countries. Article 29 of the law on
ship recycling adopted yesterday removes hazardous waste ships from the scope
of application of the European Waste Shipment Regulation. Pre-existing EU legal
instruments were contrary to IMO’s Convention but the new one attempts to be in
line with it despite manifest legal inconsistency. In such a scenario when EU is complicit in
undermining Basel Convention proposed market-based solutions cannot make the
shipping industry accountable. It has not worked in the past. It is bound fail.
EU’s long held righteous stance for environmental and human rights which were
cited to make developing countries emulate stands exposed.
In view of the above
mentioned facts, we seek your immediate intervention to ensure that India does
not accede to Hong Kong Convention and our government refrains from giving
effect to its provisions through Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of
Ships Bill, 2018.
Thanking you
warm regards
Dr Gopal Krishna
Editor,
ToxicsWatch
Mb: 08227816731,
09818089660
E-mail:
1715krishna@gmail.com
Cc
Chairman, Ship
Breaking Scrap Committee
Member
Secretary, Ship Breaking Scrap Committee
Member, Ship
Breaking Scrap Committee
Secretary,
Ministry of Steel
Secretary,
Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change
Chairman,
Central Pollution Control Board
Focal Point,
Basel Convention, Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change
Shri S.D.
Kaushik, Consultant, Ministry of Shipping
