History of the Shipbreaking Campaign

1989 - The Basel Convention is initiated by the UN Environmental programme. It regulates international trade in hazardous wastes. It aims to minimise generation and trans-boundary movement of hazardous wastes. Illegal transports are considered criminal and must be returned to the sender. More than 100 countries ratify the treaty.

1992 - The convention comes into force but it doesn't have enough bite to stop export of hazardous substances to third world countries. Greenpeace is in the forefront along with the Basel Action Network (BAN), lobbying intensively to remedy this.

1995 -Greenpeace and BAN's sfforts are successful. The Basel Ban amendment is added to the Basel Convention. This bans the export of hazardous waste from OECD (developed) countries to non-OECD (developing/third world) countries.

1998 - Greenpeace identifies shipbreaking as an environmentally destructive practice ruining the pristine beaches of poor developing countries. We see that there are no regulations to protect the environment, workers and even inhabitants of the nearby localities. In the guise of "international trade", toxic ships are dumped on third world countries to be dismantled. This is a cheap way for the shipping industries to make huge profits at the cost of the health of unprotected third world workers and ecosystems. We then realise that if ship breaking in Asian countries is banned, it will also force the shipping industry to use safe alternatives to hazardous materials in ship construction. This is because handling hazardous materials in OECD countries is an expensive business, due to stringent worker and environment safety regulations.

We declare ship breaking to be a practice in breach of the Basel Ban. But we find out that we have run up against the Basel loophole!

The Basel loophole

To come under the jurisdiction of the Basel Ban, exports had to be considered hazardous waste. The problem with ships travelling to third world countries to be scrapped is that they didn't quite fit the description of "transported wastes". Though they were waste themselves, and their import and scrapping had severe consequences for the environment, because they were travelling on their own steam, they didn't quite make it into the category of hazardous waste.

We begin to campaign to close the Basel loophole and to establish mandatory guidelines to decontaminate ships prior to export to the scrapping yards. Over the years many of our national and regional offices have become involved through events and issues in their respective geographical areas.

Our Campaign at present

We continue to work to expose the scandalous trade in toxic being sold to shipyards in the developing world. We bring to the world's attention the dangerous working conditions in the shipyards and the lack of rudimentary facilities. Our big push is really to force the clean construction of ships, and bring to an end,the generation of toxic waste.

In pursing these goals we are really engaging with the much wider issue of corporate accountability. Is it right that companies use lax enforcement of environmental law and scant respect for human life as a competitive business advantage? Is it ok that big interests usurp global commons, and treat it as free dumping grounds or resource bases which reduce their operating costs.

Can we really stand by and allow it to happen? We at Greenpeace say "No!"