CHIRAC RECALLS ASBESTOS-LADEN SHIP FROM INDIA, ORDERS INQUIRY

French President Jacques Chirac on 15 February ordered the decommissioned French aircraft carrier Clemenceau back home, after the country's top administrative body ruled that the warship contained too much asbestos to legally be sent to India for dismantling. The Clemenceau, which had already been moored outside Indian territorial waters as courts in India deliberated over whether to let it in, will now be towed back to the French naval base in Brest, where it will remain until a solution is found for its disposal.

Environmental groups, which had lobbied against sending the ship to India on the grounds that Indian shipbreakers lack the safety equipment necessary to deal with cancer-causing asbestos, hailed the decision as a victory for efforts to halt the export of hazardous wastes to developing countries, as well as for Indian workers. However, workers at the Alang shipbreaking yard in western India, where the ship had been headed, were less enthusiastic about the decision, fearing job losses.

Chirac announced the recall moments after the French Conseil d'Etat, the supreme arbiter of the legality of government decisions, cancelled the ship's export documents on the grounds that the vessel contained more asbestos than previously thought, and that it therefore fell afoul of EU laws on industrial waste. He has also ordered an inquiry into how much asbestos the vessel contained -- one of the main areas of contention between the French government and environmental groups. Asbestos trade is regulated by the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal.

The ship was halted en route to India in January, after an Indian Supreme Court committee made an interim report recommending that the ship not be allowed to enter Indian waters. After the committee returned a split final decision, with seven members in favour of accepting the ship under strict conditions and three recommending its return to France, the Supreme Court decided on 13 February to create a new panel of technical experts that would determine whether the Clemenceau should be allowed to enter the country. French government officials had suggested that France would take the ship back if the Supreme Court denied it permission to enter India.

Countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have developed massive shipbreaking industries in which low-wage workers, often poorly equipped to prevent both damage to themselves and the environment, dismantle ships for scrap metal. The Clemenceau had been purchased by an Indian company, Shri Ram Vessels. Reports in the Indian press put the value of the steel in the old warship at around USD 10 million.

Controversy over amount of asbestos on board

The controversy surrounding the Clemenceau, which left France on 31 December, stems from the presence on board of undetermined quantities of hazardous materials, in particular asbestos, that were not removed before its departure.

French authorities say that their assessment had indicated that 160 tonnes of brittle asbestos were originally present on the ship. The vessel was sent to French scrap firm Technopure, which told the French government that it had removed 115 tonnes of asbestos, leaving 45 tonnes on board. However, the French Defence Ministry subsequently announced that the landfill charged with disposal of the removed waste had only provided documentation accounting for 85 tonnes of asbestos. This threw into question whether the full 115 tonnes were taken out of the ship, or whether 30 tonnes remained in the Clemenceau over and above the 45 tonnes that were supposed to be on board.

The French Defence Ministry has ordered an inquiry into the discrepancy between Technopure claims and the landfill records.

Furthermore, environmental group Greenpeace and several scientists suggest that there may be more asbestos on board than the 160 tonnes identified during the preliminary assessment. They say that the true amount of asbestos on the ship could have been as high as 500 tonnes.

It is also possible that other carcinogenic hazardous wastes, including polychloric biphenyls (PCBs), are present on the ship. Non-governmental organisation Basel Action Network (BAN) used a comparable US vessel to argue that the Clemenceau likely contained a high amount of material contaminated with PCBs. It also suggested that the transfer of the ship to India violated the Basel Convention's stipulation forbidding signatories to undertake transboundary shipments of hazardous waste without assurances that the destination facility meets its definition of environmentally sound management. BAN claims that it is "internationally recognised" that "the shipbreaking yards in Alang do not constitute environmentally sound management as required under the Convention," though the authorities in charge of the Alang shipbreaking yard counter that workers there have the training to handle the ship's toxic waste.

Conseil d'Etat: boat not exempted from waste transfer rules

French authorities claimed that apart from the 45 tonnes of asbestos there were no other hazardous materials on board the ship. They argued that since this amount falls below the threshold level set by the Basel Convention, the ship does not qualify as 'hazardous waste', and is thus exempt from both the purview of the Convention and EU rules on the transfer of waste ships to countries like India that are not members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These claims were dismissed by the Conseil d'Etat, as was the French government's assertion that the ship was a warship and as such qualified for an exemption from the two sets of rules. This prompted Chirac to recall the ship.

Employment implications in question

Greenpeace celebrated the decision as a victory for workers and their health. Labourers in the Alang shipping yard, however, stressed that they needed the work. "All these foreign organisations, who have focussed the spotlight on Alang, are painting a negative picture of it abroad. Because of that, all the big companies will now sell their ships to Bangladesh, Pakistan and China," said Haresh Parmar, a worker in the area. "It's a big blow for the industry," said Girish Luthra, chairman of Gujarat Enviro Protection and Infrastructure, whose company was due to remove the toxic materials from the vessel. "This particular ship could have given 300 to 400 workers jobs. Overall I am sure this would have given work to 5,000 to 10,000 people." Some Indian port officials in the region suggested that the decreased levels of work in the Alang yards has been a long-term trend that is unlikely to be changed by the presence of the Clemenceau.

The Alang yards have a long history of accidents, some of them fatal. Many of them have been caused by the presence of flammable materials on ships that are being dismantled - chemicals that should have been removed before the ship was sent there, according to both the Basel Convention and domestic law.

In spite of Chirac's decision to bring the warship back to French waters for the duration of the legal processes in both countries, it could, in the foreseeable future, be sent back overseas for dismantling. The results of the investigation of the Indian Supreme Court's new expert committee, together with the French inquiries, will determine the fate of the Clemenceau.

ICTSD reporting; "French Vessel "Clemenceau" Toxic Waste Export," BASEL ACTION NETWORK, January 2006; " EU Seeks Details from France on Scrapped Warship," REUTERS, 3 February 2006; " India Panel on Toxic Waste Divided over French Ship," REUTERS, 8 February 2006; "Indian Court Orders New Panel for "Toxic" Ship," REUTERS, 14 February 2006; " French official against sending Clemenceau to India," SIFY, 14 February 2006; "Court for new panel on Clemenceau," THE HINDU, 14 February 2006; " France looks into asbestos on ship sent to scrap," REUTERS, 14 February 2006; " France orders probe into asbestos ship contractor," XINHUANET, 14 February 2006; "Unsafe Alang: fire a wake-up call to officials," INDIAN EXPRESS, 19 February 2006; "Clemenceau will return if SC denies permission," PRESS TRUST OF INDIA, 12 February 2006; "'Clemenceau' Not To Enter India Until Further Orders: SDIC," UNITED NEWS OF INDIA, 16 January 2006; "Breaking up is hard to do," THE ECONOMIST, 8 December 2005.