Hong Kong Convention Enters into Force
The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships enters into force on 26 June 2025, establishing mandatory regulations to govern the way ships are recycled.
Most ships are recycled when they are taken out of operation, with almost all materials and equipment from the ship being re-used or recycled. The Hong Kong Convention addresses key environmental, occupational health, and safety risks involved in the recycling of ships, while distributing responsibilities and obligations across relevant stakeholders - shipowners, ship building yards, ship recycling facilities, flag States, port States and recycling States.
Among other measures, the Convention:
• prohibits or restricts the installation or use of hazardous materials on ships, such as asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls, ozone-depleting substances, and anti-fouling compounds and systems containing organotin compounds or cybutryne;
• requires detailed inventories of hazardous materials;
• outlines requirements for ship recycling facility operations, including working conditions at ship recycling yards; and
• sets out robust mechanisms for certification, compliance and enforcement.
To support developing countries, IMO has organized various workshops on ship recycling to raise awareness of the Convention internationally. In addition, IMO has been actively working with countries to help build their capacity and establish the conditions that will enable them to ratify and effectively implement the Convention.
This includes the ongoing project on Safe and Environmentally Sound Ship Recycling (SENSREC Project), established with financial support from the Government of Norway. The project provides comprehensive support to countries, ranging from policy alignment, creation of institutional mechanisms and governance systems, to capacity development related to sustainable technical, social and environmental practices. SENSREC is currently active in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
However, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform warns that the Convention fails to address the environmental injustice and human rights violations that continue to stain the industry.
“The HKC does not set a roadmap for sustainable ship recycling, but will instead serve the interests of shipping companies that want to avoid paying the true cost of safe and environmentally sound end-of-life management. Tragically, it also risks to undercut efforts to level the playing field for responsible ship recyclers to compete,” says Ingvild Jenssen, Director and Founder of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
She says the HKC does not prevent the most dangerous and polluting form of shipbreaking: the dismantling of end-of-life vessels on tidal mudflats, as practiced in countries like Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. This method, known as beaching, exposes workers to life-threatening risks and does not prevent hazardous materials - such as oil sludge and heavy metal laden paints - from contaminating fragile coastal ecosystems. By failing to prohibit beaching, the HKC rubberstamps a practice that has long been banned in all major ship owning countries and which is excluded as an option for end-of-life management by responsible shipping companies.
The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships was adopted at a Diplomatic Conference held in Hong Kong, China, in May 2009. The requirements for its entry-into-force were reached in 2023, with the Convention taking effect 24 months later, on 26 June 2025. Several ship recycling nations have already been implementing the Convention’s technical standards on a voluntary basis.
Currently, there are 24 Parties to the Convention, including major flag states such as Japan, Liberia, the Marshall Islands and Panama, as well as four major ship recycling countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Türkiye. Altogether they cover 57.15% of the world’s shipping by tonnage.
