A/HRC/12/26 page 20 60. The Convention will enter into force 24 months after the date on which 15 States, representing 40 per cent of world merchant shipping by gross tonnage, have either signed it without reservation as to ratification, acceptance or approval, or have deposited instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the Secretary-General. The combined maximum annual ship-recycling volume of those States must, during the preceding 10 years, constitute not less than 3 per cent of their combined merchant shipping tonnage (art. 17). Due to these stringent requirements, current estimates suggest that 2013 is the earliest that the Convention can to enter into force. 5. The new IMO Convention: a step in the right direction? 61. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the adoption of the Ship Recycling Convention. The Convention represents a positive step towards creating an enforceable regulatory regime to ensure that end-of-life ships do not pose unnecessary risks to human health and safety and to the environment when being scrapped. The Special Rapporteur shares the assessment made by the IMO Secretary-General that this new treaty is “a good outcome in the circumstances”,23 since it achieved the establishment of legally binding rules that seek to strike a fair balance between the responsibilities of shipowners, ship-recycling facilities, and flag and recycling countries, and are thus likely to be accepted, and thus implemented, by a significant number of countries. 62. The Special Rapporteur is aware of the fact that a different text imposing much stricter requirements for ship recycling would have probably failed to attract enough ratifications to enter into force within a reasonable period of time, or would not have been supported by the main shipping countries or shipbreaking countries. Nevertheless, the Special Rapporteur cannot but observe that the forum chosen for the development of the Convention and the approach followed by IMO to reach an agreement over the final text have in some cases determined the predominance of economic interests over the overarching objective of protecting human health and the environment against the major hazards posed by the current ways of dismantling ships. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur would like to make the following observations: (a) The Convention fails to regulate in detail many important aspects of shipbreaking activities, such as the authorization of ship-recycling facilities, the development of ship-recycling plans or the elaboration of appropriate procedures to prevent adverse effects to human health and the environment. These and other issues will be addressed only by the non-mandatory guidelines that are currently being developed by IMO to ensure the effective implementation of the Convention, and which parties are only requested to “take into account”; (b) It can be argued that the Convention places a disproportionate burden on shipbreaking States, which are primarily developing countries. While the Convention does require that all ships carry on board an inventory of hazardous materials, it does not impose any obligation on shipowners to pre-clean ships of their hazardous materials prior to their recycling in a certified ship-recycling facility. The Convention only calls for the amount of cargo residues, fuel oil and waste on board to be “minimized” prior to their dispatch to a recycling facility. The 23 IMO press release, New international convention adopted to ensure safe and environmentally sound ship recycling, 18 May 2009.