By Toby McIntosh
The new transparency policy at the International Maritime Organization has a loophole and members are using it.
The Japanese government kept secret from the public its proposal for cutting ship emissions, an option totally permissible under new transparency rules.
More than one-quarter of the pre-meeting documents submitted before a key recent committee meeting about the environment were kept confidential, according to an analysis by eyeonglobaltransparency.net.
Nevertheless, this result represents an improvement from the past. As the reform gets implemented, more evidence on its impact will emerge.
Before the 2018 rule change, few documents were posted in advance of committee meetings. The procedural amendments improved transparency by allowing members to post pre-meeting documents on the open section of the IMO website (see IMODocs, registration required). But such disclosure remains voluntary.
So what specific documents will be kept out of the public eye?
A partial answer to that question is possible in the aftermath of a recent five-day meeting of the important IMO Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC). At the May 13-17 meeting, hundreds of delegates considered a variety of options for cutting CO2 emissions by 40% compared to 2008 levels by 2030, a previously agreed upon goal.
Once the meeting was over, all the documents were made available (as they had been in the past). This provided a research opportunity.
Eyeonglobaltransparency.net compared the pre-meeting and post-meeting lists of documents to figure out which submissions were kept confidential before the meeting. EYE is no expert on the substance of the talks and tallying what is disclosed is easier than figuring out why.
Overall, 33 pre-meeting documents were not made public (28 percent of the 119 documents submitted, not counting those from the IMO Secretariat). See EYE list: MEPC74 Undisclosed Pre-Meeting Documents.
Little Apparent Reason for Some Secrecy
Some of the undisclosed submissions appear totally noncontroversial.
It is even possible that some nondisclosures were inadvertent as the new system is put in place. While awaiting an automated system, the IMO staff offers submitters the option of having each document uploaded online for public view on IMODocs, or not. With committee meetings held only several times each year, agendas are agreed upon in advance and submissions are often made months before the meetings.
If nondisclosure is chosen, circulation is limited to IMO members and approved observers from industry and nongovernmental organizations, all of whom must pledge not to disclose the documents or discuss their contents.
Japan Keeps Several Documents Confidential
Whether nondisclosure by Japan and others was a tactical decision is unknown, but the pre-meeting disclosure of one document was controversial.
Japan on March 8 submitted as confidential a six-page document (MEPC 74/INF.23) recommending the use of a device to reduce a vessel’s engine power in order to cut emissions.
The Japanese proposal was leaked shortly in advance of the meeting to reporter Sam Chambers of the publication Splash, who wrote an article about it on May 6, quoting critics of the proposal. The basic problem, the critics said, is that the emissions reductions could not be verified.
One opponent of the Japanese plan also commented, “Submitting a secretive policy in a secretive way is not a good look.”
Japan also selected the nonpublic option for a Feb. 19 60-page document (MEPC 71/INF.11) that summarizes the views of other countries, by name, about efficiency standards for various types of new ships. Japan had collated the country submissions as the chair of a “correspondence group” formed at the preceding MEPC meeting in 2018. Japan, the third largest shipbuilding nation, and a few other IMO members blocked tougher efficiency standards for new ships, and the issue was assigned to the “correspondence group” for consideration.
Japan submitted the group’s overall findings (MEPC 74/5) as a public document, but keep confidential the 60-page summary document.
IMO members are not required to justify nondisclosure, nor are there standards for nondisclosure.
Overall, Japan prevented the pre-meeting release of three of its submissions, but permitted disclosure of seven.
Selective Disclosure
About a dozen other members also vetoed disclosure, but not for all of their submissions.
Norway withheld the most documents from disclosure, four, but allowed the release of five other submissions. The four undisclosed documents described the successful performance for testing of different systems for dealing with harmful aquatic organisms in ballast water.
The Cruise Line Industry Association (CLIA) opted to kept secret its “Compilation and assessment of 281 cruise ship EGCS washwater samples” (MEPC 74/INF.27) and a statement on how to calculate passenger capacity as a proxy for cargo (MEPC 74/6/1). But the CLIA allowed disclosure of several other submissions.
Surprisingly, three documents were not disclosed by Australia, one of the countries pushing for more IMO transparency reforms.
The Clean Shipping Council and Friends of the Earth International also each kept a proposal confidential.
The World Bank disclosed a study of the economic impact of emissions controls but the bank’s shorter summary of the effects wasn’t released in advance.
EYE has written about a dozen stories on transparency at the IMO, beginning with a four-part series in June 2018.
Follow EYE on Twitter @tobyjmcintosh
