Criminal and unfair.

(From Lloyds List)

It won't happen, of course, but just imagine what might occur if, on account of their disgraceful treatment by society, seafarers throughout the world stopped their ships for two days. And if they withdrew their services for two weeks, there would be riots on the streets as the cargo which was in all those vessels failed to eventuate.

It is a point which was made rather pointedly by Professor Proshanto K Mukherjee of the World Maritime University, who presented a paper entitled Criminalisation and Unfair Treatment: the Seafarer's Perspective at a recent Comite Maritime International colloquium in Cape Town.

Prof Mukherjee was a seafarer before he turned to the law and academia, so this is a powerful indictment of the way in which the treatment of this vital workforce has become something of which society should be thoroughly ashamed. And it is a scholarly summary of the way in which it has become possible to be appallingly treated in societies whose governments loudly proclaim their adherence to human rights, because one is foreign, a seafarer and an accident has left oil in the water.

Strict liability and legislation which provides for a master and seafarers to face penal sanctions without proof of intent, says Prof Mukherjee, show that certain states have no hesitation about ignoring the provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention when it suits them. Seafarers, he concludes are 'convenient scapegoats', an easy way out for prosecutors and courts to impose sanctions that they would not think of imposing for shoreside people. While he castigates the US and Canada for ignoring Article 230 of UNCLOS for 'unilaterally and blatantly violating the international law', he suggests that sanctions like those proposed under the European Union directive on ship source pollution show that 'this atrocious state of affairs is being internationally endorsed'. The fact that it also places member states in breach of their obligations under the Marine ...