News

Indian Supreme Court: Clemenceau NOT allowed in Indian waters

Egypt/India 16 January, 2006 - The Indian Supreme Court today issued a very important interim ruling, ordering that the French End of Life Ship Clemenceau is not welcome in India. Due to the hundreds of tons of asbestos onboard, importing the Clemenceau would be a serious violation of the Basel Convention. On 13 February the Supreme Court will issue a final ruling. Until that time the Clemenceau has to stay out of Indian waters.

Illegal journey
Towing the Clemenceau from France to India is in fact illegal. International law, the Basel Convention, prohibits the export of hazardous waste from developed (OECD) countries to developing (non-OECD) countries. The 163 countries that signed this treaty, decided in 2004 that End of Life Ships can also be considered toxic waste under international law. With the objective to protect the poor, this international law integrated some very specific rules.

Three parties
If hazardous waste is being transported, the exporting country is obliged to ask for permission from the importing country, before the ship leaves its port. The Basel Convention only allows the transport once this prior informed consent has been given AND if the ship will be dismantled in an environmentally sound manner. Three parties have the right to block the hazardous waste transport: the importing, the exporting and the transit country. The last one can decide to allow - or not - ships to pass through their waters. One of the specific rules to protect the poor is that one of the three involved parties (Egypt) has the right to force the others (France) to consider the Clemenceau as waste under the Basel Convention, even if France does not accept this. Another such rule is that some hazardous materials may never be transported from an OECD to a non-OECD country: asbestos is one of these materials.

Suez Canal
Egypt is a signatory to the Basel Convention and decided already in February 2005 that it would uphold the Basel Convention for ships heading for breaking yards going through the Suez Canal. A very important decision, as the Suez Canal is one of the major routes for ships traveling from western countries to the Asian scrap beaches. And now the Clemenceau was on heading for this canal!

Egypt acts
Greenpeace warned the Egyptian government that the ship was on its way and asked the country to act according to their prior statements. Egypt had announced that prior notification procedures (required under the Basel Convention) should be implemented when End of Life Ships would transit through the Suez Canal. As a transit country Egypt could deny access to the Clemenceau if the exporting and importing countries failed to comply with the requirements of the Basel Convention. And that's what the Egyptian authorities did. They asked both France and India to deliver the required documents that proved the transport of the Clemenceau was not illegal.

Greenpeace
On 12 January Greenpeace activists boarded the aircraft carrier in the international waters of the Mediterranean and climbed into the mast. They left the ship on 13 January, after Egypt had decided not to grant permission for passage to the Clemenceau, until the authorities had received the appropriate documents. Images of the action were send out all over the world and appeared in Arab, European and Asian media.

Asbestos
In France the incident caused a lot of concern as well. The ministers involved joined in an urgent meeting, and sent the requested declaration to Egypt. They guaranteed the clean and safe dismantling of the Clemenceau: the ship would only contain a small amount of asbestos. 'That is not true', Technopure officials declared. This company was contracted by the French government to decontaminate the Clemenceau before its trip to India, but ended this contract and disclosed the information on the real amount of asbestos onboard: at least 500 tons but it just as well be even 1,000 tons.

Monitoring committee
But in India someone also sent a letter on behalf of the Ministry of Environment, saying the Clemenceau was welcome in Indian waters. That was completely contradictory to the declaration of the Indian Supreme Court Monitoring Committee! On 6 January this committee decided that the import of the aircraft carrier was illegal due to the asbestos onboard. Despite that, Egypt could not do more than allow to Clemenceau to cross the Suez Canal, after receiving the 'required' documents.

French debates
The passage permission doesn't help the French authorities very much in the end. The Indian Supreme Court now decided that the Clemenceau may not enter the Indian waters until a final ruling on 13 February. Furthermore the French Supreme Court also starts debates on the End of Life Ship, after court actions by Greenpeace, human rights organization FIDH and the Ban Asbestos Network. They demand that the Clemenceau will be dismantled in France, in a safe and environmentally sound manner.

Bare hands
France has very strict rules on the removal of asbestos. But the government does not hesitate to let Asian workers dismantle the Clemenceau with their bare hands. A recent report by Greenpeace and FIDH reveals the consequences of the infamous French decision: death and destruction for the poorest of the poor in India.

Test case
In many views the Clemenceau is a test case. All three countries involved have their economic interests in transporting End of Life Ships. France owns another 55 End of Life Ships comparable to the Clemenceau that it would like to get rid of as cheap as possible. Egypt holds the key to the passage of End of Life Ships: the Suez Canal. And India is afraid of losing its shipbreaking industry.

Environment and health
That is why Greenpeace is happy that Egypt and the Indian Supreme Court are dealing with the Clemenceau on the basis of the Basel Convention. This position could prevent serious damage to the Indian environment and save the lives of shipbreaking workers on the Indian yards. Greenpeace will continue to follow the Clemenceau until the ship returns to France. Greenpeace demands that international law, environmental protection and public health prevail on economic interests.