Русский
Russia intends to develop new approaches to registration of vessels of domestic companies under foreign flags, according to Vitaly Klyuev, director of the Department of State Policy of Maritime and River Transport at the Russian Ministry of Transport. He was speaking at the XIII St. Petersburg International Law conference.
Klyuev pointed out that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, obliging a ship to register and giving the shipowner the opportunity to choose the flag State, contains a duality: part of the convention’s norms relate to the flag State, part to the ship and the shipowner.
Klyuev pointed out that “Until recently, the system worked universally, but under the stress of the international situation, flag states began to interpret the convention in their own way, and Russian shipowners began to have a number of problems. Firstly, some States do not exclude ships from their jurisdiction upon the shipowner’s application. For example, the Bahamas leaves ships under its jurisdiction, and they cannot be moved to Russian jurisdiction. Secondly, on the contrary, there are States that exclude vessels from their jurisdiction at their discretion. This is what Panama is doing, for example, excluding vessels on the sanctions list. Thirdly, some states do not respond in any way to the shipowner’s statements about exclusions. For example, Tuvalu ignores the statements of Russian shipping companies and does not issue documents, also preventing the company’s vessels from coming under Russian jurisdiction. What should Russia do? There is a good rule in the UN convention stating that the State of registry determines for itself how it will register vessels under its flag. The ship registration system in Russia needs to be adapted to the current geopolitical situation. That’s what we’re doing now.”
The 17th package of EU sanctions against Russia was adopted last week. It included 189 vessels that Europe considers part of Russia’s so-called ‘shadow fleet’. Vessels included in the sanctions list are prohibited from entering European Union ports. The total number of sanctioned vessels has now reached 342. A restructuring of the legal status of Russian owned vessels is likely to give more flexibility and control of how shipowners organise their flags of convenience. It can be expected to result in a somewhat chaotic system that will allow ships to change flags and evade sanctions – not an ideal situation as concerns global shipping, however a pushback against the sanctions that the EU keeps imposing.
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