The commitment recently made by Bangladesh, a leading ship recycling nation, to ratify the Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships 2009 (the HKC)1 within the coming weeks2 is a seminal moment for the HKC.
The criteria for the HKC’s entry into force is complex, requiring (i) not less than 15 states to have acceded to it, (ii) the combined merchant fleets of the accession states to be not less than 40% of the gross tonnage of the world’s merchant fleet and (iii) the combined annual ship recycling volume of the accession states over the past 10 years to be not less than 3% of the gross tonnage of the combined merchant shipping fleets of the same states.
 