Envisaged EU regulation on dismantling of end-of-life ships

Envisaged EU regulation on dismantling of end-of-life ships Presentation by French MoD delegation 1

Summary The IMO Convention on ship recycling The EU strategy Status of military vessels EU Council and EU Commission considerations Operational life of military vessels Legal concerns during operational life Legal concerns during dismantling operations Interplay between legal provisions and international instruments Provisions at Stake Complementarity and consistency between legal provisions 2

The IMO CONVENTION ON SHIP RECYCLING Adopted in Hong Kong from 11 to 15 May 2009, attended by delegates from 63 countries. Main aim Ensuring that recycling of ships, that have reached the end of their operational life, do not pose any unnecessary risk to human health and safety or to the environment Scope - Exclusion of military ships (article 3-2) - «each Party shall ensure, by the adoption of appropriate measures not impairing operations or operational capabilities of such ships owned or operated by it, that such ships act in a manner consistent with this convention, so far as is reasonable and practicable» (effort clause. Article 3-2) 4

Drafting of guidelines 2009 2010 2011 2012 to 2015 Adoption May, 2009 Basel Convention States groups The Hong-Kong Convention could enter into force The IMO Convention is not expected to enter into force before 2015 5

The EU strategy An objective Ensuring that ships having a strong link to the EU are dismantled - Only in safe and environmentaly sound facilities - Worldwide in line with the HK Convention A strategy Based on measures to improve ships dismantling conditions as soon as possible, including in the interim period before the entry into force of the IMO Convention Set of measures - Possibility of an early transposition of key elements of the HK Convention - Going beyond the Convention - Introducing non legislative measures 7

The UE Council deliberations : from inclusion to exclusion of military vessels The particular focus on the topic of military vessels made by the EU Commission - EU Commission Communication on ship dismantling (19 Nov 2008) : the Commission still wants the rules on waste shipment to apply to warships - EU Commission communication annexed to the COREPER Conclusions (14 Oct 2009) : an explicit work on the topic of military vessels 8

Basel Convention Working groups Regulation Proposal EU Commission? 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Fixed EU strategy Council deliberations Impact study by the EU Commission 9

Operational life of military vessels The IMO convention on ships recycling sets rules concerning operational life of vessels Controls related to ships recycling (art. 8 of HK Convention) Disclosure of information concerning the ships themselves (art. 12 of HK Convention) controls by harbour States Technical requirement regarding ships and their design (chapter 2 of the annex of HK Convention) 11

Legal concerns during operational life Supplementary EU incursion into military field? The traditional «principle of sovereign immunity for warships» Potential political conflicts between flag States and harbour States? Future EU rules may lead Member States to infrigements : possibility to refer to article 346 of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU (as an exception to the EC treaty : restrictive interpretation and reference case by case) Increase of EU monitoring on defence equipments exports 12

Legal concerns during dismantling operations Whatever the option interactions between legal provisions will impact MoDs activities 13

Provisions at stake The UN Basel Convention on the control of transboundary movements of wastes Objectives Scope Enforcement EU waste shipment regulation n 1013/2006 Objectives Scope Enforcement 15

Complementarity and coherence between legal provisions Interplay between HK Convention and waste tranfert instruments This international negociation process 16

THANK YOU. fabrice.leggeri@defense.gouv.fr francois.chevillard@defense.gouv.fr 17

ANY QUESTIONS? 18