At one time the rights and responsibilities that applied to flag states under international law were clear and consistent. Those were the days when shipping on international waters was under the exclusive domain of the developed countries until the day when the flag-of-convenience system was considered and spread.

　

Formerly, shipowners resided in the country in which their ships were registered, with the shipping companies located somewhere nearby. The crews were trained and recruited from the same country, and each entire ship was recognized as an asset of that country. Accordingly, every seafaring country had its own inspection system and inspection agencies and organizations, so the safety of each vessel could be checked under the responsibility of the flag state. This was in fact the prevailing situation in Japan a little less than 40 years ago.

　

How times have changed. Today the funding structure of shipping is so complicated that it is newly impossible to pinpoint who a given ship's owner really is. Almost all of the ships controlled by developed nations are owned by "paper" companies in flag-of-convenience countries, which often consist of nothing more than a telephone number.

　

Ships thus registered in such countries are chartered to operators in countries around the world .Crew recruitment is contracted out to crew-recruitment or ship-management companies. As ships age and deteriorate, their classification hops from one ship registration (class) to another.

In flag-of-convenience systems, shipowners pay only a ship registration tax to the country. None of the cargo or ship operations have anything to do with the country. None of its citizens are employed aboard the ship. The ship is chartered as soon as it is built, never to be seen from the shores of the registering country. This is hardly a basis for responsible management of the duties of a flag state.

　

In theory, the occurrence of accidents should arguably be of greatest trouble to the shipowner. Currently such flag states are under no pressure to hunt for the real owner of a ship until an accident occurs. Sadly, this chaotic state of affairs is the rule rather than the exception in today's international marine shipping environment.

　

This Rosemary's Baby of the developed shipping nations, the flag-of-convenience system, is today entrusted with maintaining the safety of ships and protecting the marine environment. However, this reprehensible practice is finally attracting the concerned attention it deserves. The IMO has taken up the issue of treaty compliance and has recently begun discussing the establishment of an auditing program on flag states implementation at the IMO.

　

Nonetheless, the reality is that the modem maritime shipping economy is founded on a base of cheap crew labor. Even if such an auditing program is adopted, unless sanctions are imposed on countries that object to the program it will likely end in nothing more than added paperwork for the IMO.

　

As stated above, the problem of preventing pollution of the oceans by ships is growing increasingly complex. As the international community continues to support the flag-state model, what changes can be expected to emerge in terms of responsibility? Sufficient answers remain unavailable at this time.

　

The case of the Exxon Valdez will no doubt be familiar to many. In the United States, the Exxon Valdez oil spill led to the enactment of the Oil Pollution Act of 2000, which requires that vessels plying American territorial waters are compelled to register the persons responsible for the management of said vessels. The strong implication is that shipowners are not to be trusted. Simply put, this legislation seems to mean that the right of innocent passage is not to be granted to unseaworthy ships found by port state control authorities to be in violation of treaties.

　

Port state control had its origins in Europe almost 20 years ago and began also in the Asia-Pacific region about a decade later. The inspection data from port state control are gathered for each individual ship on international ship database systems such as European Quality Shipping Information System (EQUASIS) and are used around the world. Developments in this field are expected to improve transparency regarding ships.

　

At the same time, advances in IT are giving rogue ships virtually nowhere to hide. Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) and innovations such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) are gradually but implacably tightening surveillance of individual ships-particularly in the aftermath of 9/11.

　

The recent terrorist attack on a French tanker "Limburg" in Yemen testifies to the wisdom of strengthening monitoring on a ship-by-ship basis.

　

Even as an age of ship-by-ship surveillance and management supervision is predicted, moves are afoot among major shipping companies to establish self-verification systems, using independent environmental-management programs such as charter management systems and safety management systems. These systems are useful marketing tools, highlighting the excellence of the ships these companies control as a means of promoting sales. One effect of these initiatives is to put pressure on coastal nations, especially in the developed world, to offer better treatment to operators known to manage their fleets responsibly.

　

In coordination with these initiatives, many companies are advocating quality shipping and formation of clear chains of responsibility among the developed nations.

　

1) The days of lax regulation, when ships can enter any port in the world as long as they have several certificates of compliance with international regulations, are coming to a close. We are entering an age in which ships must perform self-verification on an individual, minute-by-minute basis.

　

2) The need to protect the marine environment offers coastal nations a pretext for controlling foreign ships in their waters. Hence comprehensive national strategies are needed to derive an advantage for ocean management in a country's own waters.

　

Heretofore the problem of pollution of the oceans by ships had been left to the IMO alone to solve. Going forward, the wide-ranging nature of discussions on the problem of marine pollution demonstrates that no solution is possible without liaison with international organizations other than the IMO.

　

This means that clashes on ocean governance on numerous fronts are likely to broaden. Here in Japan, we believe that the pace of discussions must be accelerated and extended beyond the conventionally accepted bounds of jurisdiction, from the point of view of protecting the ocean.