File photo. Marshalls 201 purse seiner, right, tied to a tuna transshipment carrier vessel, is one of several thousand ships globally that are registered in the Marshall Islands, which operates the world's third largest ship registry. Photo: Giff Johnson
Solomon Islands is considering following in the footsteps of other Pacific Island nations by starting a ship registry. It comes after a Cook Islands flagged tanker is suspected of being part of Russia's shadow fleet.
Last week, Solomon Islands Minister for Infrastructure Development Manasseh Maelanga met with Tuvalu's Minister for Natural Resources Development Sa'aga Talu Teafa about the potential ship registry.
Tuvalu already has a ship registry that flags vessels, as do several other Pacific Island nations.
Maelanga said in a statement from the Ministry of Development that he believed the ship registry could provide "substantial economic benefits" to Solomon Islands.
Teafa said it had "been a good business".
"We have received revenue from shipping registry and are willing to assist the Solomon Islands in exploring this opportunity."
All vessels on the high sea must have a flag and countries pay to fly under the flag of a country.
University of Waikato law professor Alexander Gillespie said a flag state must have a genuine link to the vessel.
"It's not just something which is a loose or tangential connection, they should have a real grip on the vessel to make sure that the standards that they applied are carried out," he said.
"The standards that you're looking at are everything from safety standards, through to vessel construction, through to fishing agreements because effectively if you go for that country's flag, that vessel is tied to the obligations that that country has accepted."
Gillespie said in the past vessels would register with nations like Liberia or Panama but now more countries are opening up trying to entice registration with its flag.
"Sometimes the way they would do this is they would mean that there are lesser standards or oversight, and that would be seen as an incentive for some ship owners."
Cook Islands flagged tanker Eagle S was seized on Christmas day in the Baltic Sea after it was suspected of cutting underwater power cables.
Finnish police claim it was part of Russia's shadow fleet, used to evade oil sanctions.
Gillespie said the Pacific was opening registries "not because they're concerned about trying to have a high-quality shipping register" but because it was something countries could sell.
"The risk is that any vessels which are used for untoward purposes could be flagged to those countries, which is why you go back to that thing about having genuine link, the genuine link would mean that there are inspections of the vessel, that there is good oversight of the vessel, that you'd make sure it wasn't being used for untoward reasons.
"I can't speak specifically to what the Cooks knew with that vessel but if they were guided by New Zealand practice, the genuine link would have been of a higher standard."
