… and some with a “flag of convenience” that allows shipowners to avoid millions in taxes, not to mention environmental, health & safety regulations. Rose George in the NYTimes discusses “Flying the Flag, Fleeing the State“:
Four American yachters killed; a Danish family of five and two crew members kidnapped: these events in the space of a week early this year may finally fuel a consensus that something needs to be done about piracy in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. And something should be done: in addition to the yachters, nearly 700 sailors, mostly Filipino, Bangladeshi and Russian, are being held hostage. Often forced to operate their captured ships at gunpoint, with little food or water, some of them have been prisoners for months.
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But maritime lawlessness isn’t confined to pirates. Thanks to a system of ship registration called “flags of convenience,” it is all too easy for unscrupulous ship owners to get away with criminal behavior. They have evaded prosecution for environmental damage like oil spills, as well as poor labor conditions, forcing crews to work like slaves without adequate pay or rest. But unlike piracy, which seems intractable, the appalling conditions on some merchant ships could be stopped.
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Ships used to fly the flags of their nation. They were floating pieces of their home country on ungovernable seas, with all the advantages and disadvantages of government oversight: if things went wrong, seafarers were protected by their governments. If they did wrong, they could be punished.
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But in the early 20th century, this began to change. Panama, seeking to attract American ships avoiding Prohibition laws, allowed non-Panamanians to fly its flag, for a fee. Liberia and other countries followed suit. Today these “open registries” are used by over 60 percent of shippers, up from 4 percent in the 1950s.
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Under the flags of convenience system, registries have been divorced from government oversight. North Korea has a thriving registry, as does landlocked Mongolia. Liberia’s registry, the second-largest in the world, flourished even during a dozen years of civil war. Some registries allow ship owners to change the flags they’re registered under within 48 hours; some require little more than a signature or an online form from an owner. Many don’t require owners to disclose their identities at all…
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Many state registries lack the capacity or will to monitor the safety and working conditions on ships, or to investigate accidents. Instead, ship safety certificates are given out by private classification societies. Owners are allowed to choose which society they want — and the worst predictably choose the least demanding.
I originally typed that title as “fleecing the state”, but of course that’s not allowable under the Grey Lady’s style guide. Click through and read the whole article, you won’t regret it. And if you’ve got a few extra minutes, George’s “All at Sea: Five Weeks on A Container Ship” dispatches for Slate at the end of last year will tickle anyone who ever read the ripping maritime yarns of Kipling or Jack London, or Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi.
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