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Rusty tankers without insurance transport around a third of Russia’s oil exports. They have to pass through the Danish straits. The government now wants to stop these passages.
Russia’s notorious fleet of shadow tankers has been causing unrest in the Baltic Sea for months. Finland has increased controls at sea because it fears accidents off its coast: the tankers are ancient, barely maintained and mostly operate without proper insurance. Sweden recently discovered a whole fleet of the ailing ships off its island of Gotland, refueling, pumping cargo from one ship to another – or simply bobbing around. Stockholm described this as a clear provocation.
Now Denmark has announced for the first time that it wants to take action against the fleet. The country is the transit point between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, its many islands narrow the sea to two narrow channels that the scrap fleet has to pass through – through the Great Belt or the Öresund between Denmark and Sweden. The risk of accidents and an oil spill is therefore high. Denmark has a group of other Baltic Sea countries and EU-members to evaluate measures against the shadow tankers, Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told several media outlets.
Danish Foreign Minister: Shadow fleet is an international problem
“There is broad consensus that the shadow fleet is an international problem and that international solutions are needed,” said Løkke Rasmussen, for example, ReutersThis also applies to Russian and other companies that directly or indirectly support the shadow fleet, he said the specialist medium Ship Technology.
Russia sends a third of its crude oil exports to the world through Danish waters in this way, about 1.5 percent of the global supply. The sanctions due to the war in Ukraine prohibit the insurance of Russian oil transports above a price cap. The name shadow fleet comes from the fact that the ships in question deliberately switch off the automatic ship identification system (AIS) – and move undetected through the seas as if in shadow. In Danish waters, the tankers are increasingly refusing pilot services despite the narrowness.
A treaty of 1857 forces Denmark to allow all ships to pass
It is understandable that Denmark fears this shadow fleet. But the legal situation is quite tricky as long as the shadow tankers only pass through the waters and do not, for example, call at a Danish port. The reason is a document that is almost 200 years old: the Copenhagen Treaty of 1857. For centuries, the Danish royal family had previously collected tolls from ships passing through. The “cannon thunder” rule applied: countries were allowed to control the waters that they could reach with their cannonballs. In the 1857 treaty, Denmark renounced this right “forever” in return for a large one-off payment from the contracting parties, including Great Britain, France, Prussia – and the Russian Empire.
Since then, Denmark is no longer allowed to stop or hinder foreign ships. This is stated in Article 1 of the treaty of 1857. The Russian ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, also described the Danish plans to Reuters citing the contract as “unacceptable”. The Danish Straits are European waters in which the Russian sanctions theoretically apply, prohibiting the import and transit of many Russian goods. But in this case, that is of no use. According to the Danish law firm, the ancient contract Gorrissen Feather Play the U.N.-Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is no longer in force.
Denmark must not stop the passage of foreign ships
So what can Denmark actually do about the shadow tankers? The Danish Foreign Ministry made it clear that it would ensure that all measures “are legally sound, including in relation to international law.”
One possibility is the danger to the environment and safety posed by the tankers. UNCLOS provides an exception to the principle of free passage. Denmark can inspect and detain a suspicious ship with regard to environmental hazards if it does not have the necessary certificates and insurance, according to the lawyers at Gorrissen Federspiel. UNCLOS allows proceedings to be initiated against the ship “if the ship’s violation poses a major threat to the coast or other interests of Denmark.”
Bosporus as a model? New rule reduces passage of Russian tankers
Could this be the approach? There is a proposal to require all tankers in the Baltic Sea to prove that they have sufficient insurance cover, reports the Danish newspaper DanwatchIn other words, their insurance policy covers major damage such as an oil spill. However, this too may only be checked if there is concrete, well-founded suspicion.
So is the idea a toothless tiger? Not necessarily, as long as it has a deterrent effect. It should be legally possible to demand the presentation of insurance that a ship is obliged to have, Danwatch quotes Kristina Siig, professor of maritime law at the University of Southern Denmark: “Even if there is no practice of this so far.” A similar model has proven successful on the Bosporus in Turkey, the only connection from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. According to Siig, it has been possible to reduce the number of tankers in the Russian shadow fleet with fake insurance.
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