Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
they adopt these standards. The other main impact of the state a ship is registered in is
that average detention rates are kept for all ships and are aggregated by
ag state. An
overall average detention rate (a three-year rolling average) for all inspected ships is cal-
culated, and
fl
fl
ag states whose ships exceed the average during that period are then
identi
ed as those that should be more frequently inspected. The Paris and Tokyo MOUs
also list states on black, grey and white lists to indicate the overall level of risk by ships
that
fi
ag. (The Paris MOU black list is further disaggregated into levels of
risk.) Other PSC systems maintain lists of states that have a higher-than-average deten-
tion rate for the previous three years and thus receive additional attention (DeSombre,
2006).
No ship owners want their ships to be inspected - even if they pass, the additional time
can cause costly delays in an industry that runs on tight margins, and the risk that some-
thing will be determined to be de
fl
y that state's
fl
cient is always present when an inspection happens. As
Julio Sosa, the Panamanian Maritime Consul in Houston, put it, 'No one wants to be in
a
fi
ngering you all the time' (Morris, 1996, p. 15).
Ship owners, even if they prefer to keep the standards on their ships low, do not want to
be singled out for inspection. Similarly,
fl
ag where the coast guard is going to be
fi
ag states recognize that gaining a poor inspec-
tion record can harm their ability to attract ship registrations.
The earliest success of the nascent system just as it was being created was seen in its
fl
e
ects on the potential for accidental oil pollution. The Liberian registry, at the time the
largest of the open registries, had a very poor reputation for oil spills. Owners of Liberian-
registered oil tankers did not want to be singled out for inspection under this new system,
and so worked to increase the standards of the registry, both by persuading the Liberian
state to adopt a number of international environmental agreements pertaining to ships,
and by developing their own inspection system to ensure that Liberian-registered tankers
would gain an excellent safety and environmental record (while retaining the cost advan-
tages of low tax and registration fees and low labor standards). This e
ff
for
many: those that could not meet the newly increased standards of the registry moved their
ship registrations elsewhere, and the Liberian
ff
ort paid o
ff
fl
ag gained an excellent PSC rating
(DeSombre, 2006).
A similar trajectory can be seen with the standards and records of ships
agged in other
open registries. The standards undertaken by the Marshall Islands and Vanuatu improved
dramatically when their ships began to be singled out for inspection. The registries created
their own inspection processes, adopted new international standards, and their records
improved. Belize followed a similar trajectory. Most recently both Malta and Cyprus
increased their standards to overcome poor PSC records when faced with threats from the
EU that their membership applications would not be approved unless the environmental
records of their registries improved. Not all registry records have improved: in a system
that singles out ships for inspections based on their relationship to the average ship's
record, someone will always be below average. Some registries, such as Honduras, seem
to focus on maintaining low standards, and others, such as Panama - currently the world's
largest ship registry - try to stay as close to average as possible. But even these states pay
attention to where the average is and would prefer, if possible, to beat it (DeSombre, 2006).
Even after pressure on major open registries through the PSC system to raise standards,
ships
fl
agged in open registries are more likely to fail inspection. The PSC records under
the major inspection processes (the Paris and Tokyo MOUs and the US Coast Guard
fl
