IMO flagged about new register created in tiny uninhabited South Pacific island

Wily, shady entrepreneurs are scanning world maps to seek ever more distant outposts to establish ship registers to help grease the flows of the dark fleet.

France and the Netherlands have submitted a paper to the International Maritime Organization’s legal committee about the emergence of two new shipping flags with questionable credentials, one in the Caribbean and the other, a disputed, uninhabited volcanic island in the South Pacific.

The submission hits out at what is described as the “fraudulent” registers of Sint Maarten and Matthew Island.

MSTA Registry – International Maritime Registries & Regulatory Inc is “posing” as the register of Sint Maarten, the paper warns. Sint Maarten, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is a country on the southern part of a Caribbean island shared with Saint Martin, a French overseas collectivity.

More perverse is the new Maritime Administration of Matthew Island, a flag created on a 0.7 sq km rocky outcrop (pictured) where there are no inhabitants. Matthew Island is located in the South Pacific, 300 km east of New Caledonia and southeast of Vanuatu. The island is claimed by Vanuatu, and considered by the people of Aneityum as part of their custom ownership, but also claimed by France as part of New Caledonia.

The IMO has had to contend with a raft of fraudulent registers emerging in step with the growth of the shadow fleet this decade. The UK has been leading a bid to stamp out falsely flagged ships at the IMO. 

In a January submission to the IMO’s legal committee, backed by 21 other countries, the UK counted that the number of falsely flagged vessels has more than doubled to 223 ships in the space of just 22 months. Tankers and general cargo ships are the worst offenders.

“This is clear evidence that there is an adverse impact from fraudulent ship registration and fraudulent registries of ships in terms of maritime safety, security, environmental consequences and most importantly the human element, especially seafarers on board ships which are fraudulently registered,” the paper said.

The investigation suggested that many flag states were under-resourced, while the decision by some states to outsource flag administration was also seen as a reason for the soaring number of falsely flagged ships. 

The UK said guidelines are needed to assist flags and developing states in improving registration quality and standards, thereby potentially preventing fraud.