선박국적 부여조건으로서의 진정한 연계와 국제사회의 대응

Article 91 of UNCLOS says that "Every State shall fix the conditions for the grant of its nationality to ships, for the registration of ships in its territory, and for the right to fly its flag. Ships have the nationality of the State whose flag they are entitled to fly. There must exist a genuine link between the State and the ship." It can be easily found that the condition for "genuine link" is not manifestly stated in the article. About 50% of the vessel in the world is reportedly operated as the vessel of flag of convenience, which means that it does not have any real relationship between the vessel and the its flag. This vessel shows large ratio of accident because the government of the vessel's flag does not exercise their function of the flag state. Some scholars allege that the definition of the genuine link in Article 91 of UNCLOS is problematic in this respect.The writer researched the historical background of the genuine link definition in this paper and concludes that international community did not reach an agrement to make the definition of the genuine link precisely in the UNCLOS because industrial nations wanted to maintain the flag of convenience vessel. The writer shows the tendency that instead of regulating the substandard vessel resulted from flag of convenience vessel by fortifying the definition of genuine link in the UNCLOS, international shipping community launched more realistic approach such as Port State Control. While the writer supports IMO's safety initiative, he makes a proposal for revision of Article 91 of UNCLOS.