St. Kitts & Nevis - An International Ship Registry

Article by Nigel Smith

The right to establish and maintain a Register of Ships is a fundamental right of all nation states. In establishing such a Register the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) declares that " every state shall fix the conditions for the grant of its nationality to ships, for the registration of ships and for the right to fly its flag."

Registration is generally used to mean attributing a national character to a ship and a link from the ship to an ownership and control structure in that nation state, (the Flag State) which is then duly recorded in the Register of Ships. In the words of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas, "Ships shall have the nationality of the State whose flag they are entitled to fly". Such Registers are generally termed "Traditional or Closed Registers". The registration of ships has its known origins in the laws of Imperial Rome and was widely practised in the City States of medieval Italy. In England an official registration system first appears in the 17th and 18th Century Navigation Acts, starting with a statute of Charles II in 1660.

"Open or International Registers", which are termed by critics as "Flags of Convenience" (FOC's) are usually considered to allow registration of ships under conditions, which for whatever reasons, are considered more convenient and opportune for the persons registering the ship, than those of a Traditional Register. Some critics maintain that Open Registers allow owners to hide behind a corporate veil of secrecy, without an economic link to the flag state or to operate their ships with less regard for safety and environmental protection. Such critics forget that there are both ancient and modern examples of this practice. It is thought that ancient Mediterranean traders were able to deal with warring parties by virtue of...