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The
European Union and the US have taken
bold steps to enforce the terms of
the proposed ban on tributyl tin
used in anti-fouling paints for
ships agreed at IMO in last October
and to prepare regional legislation
to ensure that its objectives are
met regardless of ratification.
The
proposed ban, which looks to phase
out new applications of paints
including TBTs by January 1, 2003,
requiring all such paints to be
removed or sealed by January 1,
2008, needs ratification by 15
countries representing 25 per cent
of global tonnage to become
international law.
The
move by EU and the US pre-empts any
failure of national parliaments to
pass the legislation by the date of
application.
Despite
the much-heralded good intentions of
IMO, some had feared that the ban
would be unlikely to become
international law until 2006,
raising the spectre of a retroactive
international ban being contested
through national courts.
Drawing
on a clause within the IMO
convention stating that
administrations can take action
against all vessels if they
demonstrably disadvantage the
competitive position of flagged
vessels, the EU has acted quickly to
slap down such a possibility.
EU
has agreed to prepare a broadened
draft of the existing Marketing and
Use Directive 76/769, which already
prohibits the use of TBTs applied to
hulls less than 25 m in length.
In
its amended form, the directive will
apply to vessels of any length
coated in EU waters after January 1,
2003. Exposed TBTs will be banned
altogether from January 1, 2008.
Because
the directive already exists, its
widened version can be adopted by
the commission before the end of
February and become law throughout
the EU within six months without
reference to national legislators.
More
startlingly, the Council of
Ministers has decided that similar
measures can be prepared affecting
any ship calling at an EU port.
EU
is expected to to prepare a new
regulation within its work programme
for 2002, again to be applied EU-wide,
banning any ship coated with paints
including TBTs after January 1, 2003
from calling at an EU port after
that date, with removal or sealing
mandatory by January 1, 2008, in
line with the IMO proposed ban.
In
the US the necessary legislative
mechanism is not in place, but the
intent appears equally strong.
The
US Cost Guard and the EPA let it be
known that the intention is to
prepare new legislation outlawing
vessels whose outer coating includes
TBTs applied after January 1, 2003.
The
US Coast Guard is understood to have
called on shipowners to phase out
TBTs used in anti-foulings in
anticipation of a wider application
of existing pesticide laws to
include TBTs applied after January
1, 2003.
In
the meantime, international efforts
will need to focus on the creation
of a new certification process to
handle TBT inspection, with one of
the main issues outstanding at IMO
level the issue of pre-ban
certificates serving warrant that an
owner has removed or covered all
paints featuring TBTs.
Both
ABS and DNV are understood to be
preparing an interim certificate
regime, a matter that will be
discussed at 47th session of the
MEPC in March.
Other
issues, unlikely to be resolved
until the following year, include
the sampling techniques envisaged
through which port state control
officials will monitor coatings.
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