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The maritime order is crumbling under geopolitical pressure. The Baltic Sea and Scandinavia are among those affected. What to do?
- A “shadow fleet” is helping Russia to circumvent sanctions in the Ukraine war – but that is not without risk.
- The ships and their owners do without pilots even in sensitive waters, do not help in emergencies and can hardly be held liable for damage.
- A reform of maritime law would probably be necessary. But that is almost impossible to achieve. A creative workaround is needed.
- This article is available for the first time in German – the magazine first published it on March 26, 2024 Foreign policy.
Washington, DC – It was only a matter of time before Russia's rapidly expanding shadow fleet became a serious risk to maritime traffic. It's about ships that transport oil in order to circumvent the sanctions against Moscow. The owners do everything in their power to conceal the identity. As the Financial Times now reported that Russian ships in Danish waters now regularly refuse pilotage services – a practice that not only violates maritime etiquette but can also lead to a catastrophic accident.
The collision of a container ship with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in the United States on Tuesday (March 26) shows the dangers of ships passing through difficult waters. The Dali collided with the bridge even though it was being controlled by two pilots. Even if only a small proportion of ships forego pilotage services, there is a risk that similar disasters will become commonplace.
A conflict with Russia is looming – if Putin admits his role as a sponsor of the shadow fleet
International shipping regulations strongly recommend the use of pilots with specialized local knowledge for most ships navigating the Great Belt, the narrow passage between Denmark's largest islands. In addition to being narrow, the Great Belt has treacherous waters and is extremely busy: every year around 70,000 ships pass through the Great Belt and the nearby Øresund between the coasts of Denmark and Sweden. On difficult shipping routes, be it in the Great Belt or the Suez Canal, it is common practice to follow international shipping recommendations and have an experienced pilot on site.
In the interests of maritime safety and order, Copenhagen could block ships that refuse to provide pilotage. However, there is then a risk of conflict with Russia – if Moscow admits its role as a sponsor of the shadow fleet. Blocking these violating ships would itself violate international maritime rules. However, before such a decision is forced, the open source intelligence community could help: by uncovering the identity and whereabouts of the Shadow Ships' owners.
Since the beginning of 2024, according to internal reports from the Financial Times and the Danish research group Danwatch, at least 20 tankers – presumably shadow ships carrying Russian oil – refused to take Danish pilots on board.
Shadow ships in the Baltic Sea: owners difficult to locate – and often not insured
That's at least 20 tankers that sailed through the Baltic Sea – in most cases via the Gulf of Finland, through the exclusive economic zones of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and Germany – into Danish waters and the Great Belt. From there they continue into the Kattegat (Danish and Swedish waters) and the Skagerrak (Danish and Norwegian waters) as well as the North Sea and the oceans. Up to their customers in countries like India and China.
Shadow ships are decommissioned vessels that spend their final years conducting transport to and from sanctioned countries. Official ships and their owners do not sail to these destinations. The Risk that these and other “dark ships” pose to coastal states, is made worse by the fact that they fly the flags of countries that are unlikely to come to anyone's rescue in the event of an accident or incident (Gabon is a particular favorite) and are not regularly serviced. Any accident – be it a collision or an oil leak – can therefore be doubly devastating.
In addition, their owners are difficult to locate – and they are not adequately insured. For example, if a shadow ship caused a massive oil spill in Finnish waters, the Finnish authorities and taxpayers would pay. And shadow ships are more likely to be involved in accidents than law-abiding ships, as they often turn off their AIS (automatic identification system).a GPS-like navigation instrument that allows ships to see each other.
Sanctions in the Ukraine war are causing the shadow fleets to grow
Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia's often successful attempts to circumvent sanctions have swelled the shadow fleet. It is currently thought to number around 1,400 vessels, although as with all illegal activity it is impossible to measure accurately.
When oil spills occur, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) International Oil Spill Compensation Fund supports the affected countries. However, if the number of oil spills and other toxic substances increases significantly, as is likely to happen because of the shadow fleet, the fund will not have enough money to compensate everyone.
So should Denmark simply block shadow ships that refuse to serve as pilots, or all shadow ships at all?
“Denmark doesn’t have the right”
Not so fast. Yes, shadow ships violate international maritime laws and conventions, but the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) gives all ships the right of so-called innocent passage – that is, the right to pass through other countries' territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. The fact that shadow vessels violate maritime law does not give coastal states the right to violate those rules in turn.
Retired Rear Admiral Nils Wang, former head of the Danish marine, which also carries out a number of coastguard duties, says: “According to international law, the Danish Straits are international straits and do not fall under Danish jurisdiction. For this reason too, Denmark does not have the right to force ships to use pilots.”
Although most ships follow IMO recommendations and use paid pilotage services, there have been a few misers over the years who forgo pilotage services. In some cases these ships have caused oil spills. “Every time a ship that has not used pilotage leaks, there is an outcry to ban the culprits, but we can't do that,” Wang said.
Shadow Fleet scenario was unthinkable for a long time – Denmark gets creative: “Embarrassing for captains”
In the mid-2010s, the number of misers who were traveling without a pilot service grew. The Danish authorities got creative and announced that they would call ships with a draft of more than eleven meters that do not apply for pilotage via VHF and remind them that they are not following international recommendations and that Denmark will send them to their flag state and will report to the IMO.
In addition, when a call is made via VHF, any ship nearby can hear the conversation. “And then we started doing it,” Wang said. “And that changed behavior because it was embarrassing for the ships and captains to be called out like that. But when you're part of the dark fleet, you don't care. Calling out these ships will make no difference.”
Coastal states have the right to block access to their territorial waters in certain cases, such as when transiting ships are in poor condition or are not properly insured. But when states agreed and signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982, a situation in which a country would systematically evade globalization-related economic sanctions by deploying a fleet of dark ships was unimaginable.
What if a Russian shadow ship collides with a Danish Navy ship?
In response to the plight of the shadow fleet, UNCLOS signatory states could come together to make pilotage services mandatory in sensitive waters. But such negotiations would take a long time and could never lead to a result under the current geopolitical conditions. And since the Danish Strait is an international body of water, Denmark cannot set new rules on its own.
This is globalization at a time when geopolitics plays a big role: Russia can invade Ukraine and evade the resulting sanctions with the help of a fleet that sails through the waters of law-abiding countries – and their governments can't stop it . On the contrary, with Russia now using a shadow fleet like Iran, Venezuela and North Korea, more and more countries will come to the conclusion that wrongdoing and economic sanctions are no big deal. And trading with dark ships is cheaper than trading with legally operating ships.
An even larger shadow fleet would of course increase the risks to both marine fauna and regular shipping. What would Denmark do if a Russian shadow ship collided with a legal merchant ship or even a Danish Navy ship in the Danish Strait? What would NATO do?
Putin's Shadow Fleet: Public “shaming” as a last resort
However, at the moment there is one group of dark fleet operators that can be targeted completely legally and without the risk of geopolitical escalation: the owners of the Shadow ships. They are numerous and hide behind PO box addresses in countries like the United Arab Emirates – because they don't want to step out of the shadows.
However, on the bright side of this standoff is a large and growing community of open source investigators, including both professionals and amateurs. These investigators should do a good deed for the global maritime order by tracking down the owners of shadow ships and then making their identities and activities public. Some of them may be hardened criminals who shy away from the embarrassment of a public inquiry, but many others may just be ordinary businessmen who have spotted an opportunity.
As with the ships once named on Danish radio, public shaming can be a way to force people to act.
To the author
Elisabeth Braw is a columnist at Foreign Policy, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of Goodbye Globalization. Twitter (X): @elisabethbraw
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on March 26, 2024 in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com“ was published – as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.
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