The shipping industry is faced with the entry into force of an International Convention (International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments, 2004) which has fundamental flaws in its method of implementation. These flaws:
1. the lack of certainty that the technology being approved by Governments will meet the biological discharge standards being demanded by the Convention; and,
2. that the port State control enforcement mechanism stipulated in the Convention and implemented through the various relevant Guidelines further compounds this uncertainty in compliance.
Further complexity in compliance stems from the increasing tendency for unilateral legislation which is not harmonised with the international regime.
(refer to the pdf file for full text of the Round Table Discussion Paper)
