Ong, flag on ship is not folklore

(Prof. Augusto Sinagra) The lines that Prof. Augusto Sinatra, professor of international law, wanted to post on his Facebook profile, in reference to the question of national flags on NGO ships, are very interesting. We report the post in its entirety, considering the ideas of international law, really fitting the current situation.

"I will try to make a purely technical-juridical reflection of international law of which I have been Full Professor at the University.
1. Ships sailing the seas beat a flag. The Flag is not merely folk or colored. The flag of the ship makes recognizable the reference State of the ship in whose Naval Registers it is registered (in the registers is also indicated the public or private property).
2. The ship is legally a "traveling community" or, in other words, a "mobile projection" of the State of reference. According to international law, the ship, outside the territorial waters of another State, is considered "territory" of the State of the Flag.
Therefore, the laws, all the laws, even criminal ones, of the State of the Flag apply to the high seas.
3. The famous EU Regulation of Dublin provides that so-called "refugees" (in fact, deported) should take charge of the state with which they first come into contact. Starting with any requests for political asylum.
4. So we do not see the reason why a ship flying the flag, for example, German, Spanish or French, should - in agreement with the smugglers - collect the so-called refugees just outside the Libyan territorial waters and then download them in Italy when the competence and the obligation is, as said, of the State of the Flag.
5. Finally it emerged that two ships flying the Dutch flag and with the usual load of human goods, do not legally connect to the Kingdom of Holland and do not appear on those naval registers, as declared by the Dutch Authorities.
Then, legally, it is "pirate ships" which are not only those that fly the black flag with the skull and crossbones (as in the novels of Emilio Salgari).
6. It follows the right / duty of each State to prevent the free navigation, the seizure of the ship and the arrest of the Captain and the crew.
Many of the so-called "refugees" began to protest publicly, denouncing that they had been deported to Italy against their will. We are, therefore, in the presence of a new and unprecedented slave trade, of a disgusting and truly repulsive slavery also consummated with the complicity of the EU, which offends the human conscience and which must be fought with every means ".

 

Ong, flag on ship is not folklore