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In 1944, daily over many months, Chuuk Lagoon, a harbour in the Federated States of Micronesia, was bombed by Allied Forces. By the end of the Second World War, hundreds of wrecks were scattered on the ocean floor. Over a decade ago, it was discovered that oil has been slowly seeping from the shipwrecks near Chuuk Lagoon. The President of Micronesia aptly referred to the shipwrecks as “ticking environmental timebombs”.
The Environmental Threat of Shipwrecks
Although Chuuk Lagoon contains the largest concentration of shipwrecks, it is estimated that there are over 8,500 sunken vessels that qualify as ‘potentially polluting wrecks’ across the world. The majority of these wrecks were sunk during World War I and II, and contain “harmful chemical pollutants, unexploded munitions, and an estimated 6 billion gallons of heavy fuel oil.”
If estimations are accurate, and all 6 billion gallons would spill into our oceans simultaneously, this would constitute an oil spill 545 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez leak in 1989, and 30 times the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. In any case, marine pollution resulting from all these sources is projected to peak this decade. Marine pollution will affect more than just the environment and will directly impact coastal communities’ health and livelihood, as well as wildlife populations. Fish and other sources of seafood exposed to chemicals found in wrecks may be toxic and carcinogenic to humans.
The cost of removing oil from a single shipwreck may run in the millions of dollars. However, this cost is nowhere near the financial impact of cleaning up the inevitable oil spills. Recovery is further impeded due to legal issues of ownership and liability, and preservation of underwater cultural heritage.
The North Sea Wrecks Project
Another affected area is the North Sea, where approximately 1,000 shipwrecks lie. Among these is the V-1302 John Mahn, a German naval ship found to have been leaking toxic chemicals into the North Sea. Researchers found evidence of toxic substances “in samples taken from the boat’s hull and the nearby ocean floor”, which have affected the marine ecosystem around the ship. To deal with shipwrecks in the North Sea, the European Union has funded the ‘North Sea Wrecks’ research project in 2018, to determine what the impact of the shipwrecks on marine environments really is.
Interestingly, research from the North Sea Wrecks project is inconclusive as to whether we need to be worried about the effect of the shipwreck pollutants on the environment. Communities of microorganisms consist of bacteria that can naturally break down toxic substances. The research is however limited to current levels of pollutants in the North Sea wrecks and does not take into account the possibility of larger spills when one or more (potentially thousands) of the wrecks begin to disintegrate.
United Nations Initiatives for Marine Pollution
Under UN Sustainable Development Goal 14.1, countries targeted to “prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds” by 2025. Moreover, the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development framework stipulates that by 2030, there must be “a clean ocean where sources of pollution are identified and reduced or removed”. Limited progress has been made toward achieving these goals, and the issue surrounding the potentially polluting shipwrecks remains largely unaddressed on the international level.
In May 2022, UN Countries agreed to the Lisbon Declaration named ‘Our ocean, our future, our responsibility’. In the Declaration, shipwrecks are lightly touched upon as follows:
“We stress that science-based and innovative actions and international cooperation and partnerships based in science, technology and innovation […] can contribute to the solutions necessary to overcome challenges in achieving Goal 14 in the following ways […] preventing, reducing and controlling marine pollution of all kinds, from both land- and seabased sources, including […] pollution from ship wrecks and anthropogenic underwater noise, through improving our understanding of their sources, pathways and impacts on marine ecosystems, and through contributing to comprehensive life-cycle and source-to-sea approaches that include improved waste management.”
Although the Declaration is a step in the right direction, it does not contain a tangible action plan on how to address the “pollution from shipwrecks” the UN refers to. In particular, it fails to address a glaring shortcoming in international regulation that is preventing a global solution to shipwreck clean-up.
International Regulation
International regulations on shipwreck clean-up remain weak. The law and order of the world’s oceans and seas is governed by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). However, UNCLOS provides no rules on sunken warships (or wrecks in general). In general, under UNCLOS, active warships and other State-owned or operated ships have complete immunity from any jurisdiction other than the flag State [1]. This principle applies even if these ships sail in the Exclusive Economic Zone or the territorial sea of another State. UNCLOS fails to state whether this principle applies to sunken State vessels. It is therefore unclear whether the sovereign immunity principle applies to the shipwrecks from World War I and II.
In an attempt to address the omissions of UNCLOS, two further legal instruments were publicised: UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (the “Cultural Heritage Convention”) and the International Maritime Organisation its Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks (the “Nairobi Convention”). Yet, World War II warships largely fall outside the scope of both treaties. The Cultural Heritage Convention relates to underwater war graves, which become cultural heritage after 100 years, thus excluding World War II wrecks. The Nairobi Convention explicitly excludes warships from its scope, unless a state party has chosen to extend the scope of application to include warships.
In August 2015, the Institute of International Law (IDI) adopted a resolution titled ‘The Legal Regime of Wrecks of Warships and Other State-Owned Ships in International Law’. This resolution finally provides a legal regime to cover most of the issues dealt with in this article. The resolution takes into account the cultural heritage status of some ships, as well as the fact that the warships are also gravesites. Most importantly, the resolution states: “All States should co-operate to protect and preserve wrecks which are part of cultural heritage, to remove wrecks which are a hazard to navigation, and to ensure that wrecks do not cause or threaten pollution of the marine environment.”
The 2015 IDI resolution is a positive step, as it emphasises the cooperation needed to protect wrecks and prevent pollution. However, a much more comprehensive legal solution is needed to deal with issues of cost and liability. In the absence of such a framework, it would be advisable to include clean-up of potentially polluting shipwrecks under the objectives of the Loss and Damage Fund for Vulnerable Countries to ensure that developing nations do not have to bear the cost of clean-up of wrecks in their waters.
[1] UNCLOS Articles 95 and 96
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