How might we better manage the world’s oceans?
This question came up often during the reporting of The New York Times’s series about lawlessness at sea. Labor, human rights and environmental abuses are widespread largely because the oceans are so sprawling, jurisdiction is complicated and policing is rare. To address these problems, maritime and law enforcement officials have proposed a variety of measures, some of them already being put into effect. They emphasized, though, that far more needs to be done. Among their recommendations:
To protect labor and human rights
Track abuse and violence at sea. To avoid the abuse or disappearance of seafarers, governments should make more spot checks on ships returning to port and levy heavier penalties for incomplete crew lists. Shipowners and crews should be legally obligated to report crimes at sea. Port officials and insurers should limit the fines imposed on ships found with stowaways that create incentives for killing or abandoning stowaways at sea. The programs that grant ships the right to fly a country’s flag should collect detailed crime data on crew members and captains and make the information public. Flag programs should also agree to help create and maintain an international database for tracking missing mariners.
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