Dark Story: Harvard Economist Explains Why Captains Are Arrested When Oil Is Spilled
“In some of the biggest maritime cases in history,” writes Degnarain. “it has often been the captain of large vessels that have been positioned as scapegoats by the very shipping companies that employ them and earn billions of dollars annually for their loyal service.”
The Forbes article goes deeper explaining that ‘Blaming the crew’ has been the go-to response for many ship owners, operators, maritime insurance firms, and ‘flags of convenience’ regulators, rather than addressing some of the bigger, systemic safety issues in the shipping world, that have gone unchecked for so long.
Why?
According to Degnarain and Devaney there are three reasons:
1) crew errors are easier to recognize compared to poor ship design, poor maintenance, and poor enforcement of rules.
2) ship investigators are incentivized to only focus on the surface, operational issues rather than the systemic issues underlying them.
3) blaming the crew is the easy way out to avoid identifying culpability of the ship owners, constructors, or those responsible for ship maintenance.
Like any good movie, I don’t want to give away the ending but… in the case of the M/V Wakashio, the combination of Degnarain’s Harvard economics degree combined with his investigative journalist experience has uncovered a story just as strange and twisted as any Hollywood blockbuster. You can read the full story here: The ‘Dark Forces’ Surrounding The Captain’s Lawyers In Mauritius Wakashio Oil Spill Ship Case
gCaptain
