David Heindel from the International Transport Workers’ Federation on the dangers lurking behind the maritime industry’s use of flags of convenience. Recent reporting on false flags and the rise of shadow fleets has rightly raised alarms about maritime security, sanctions enforcement, environmental safety – and, too often as a secondary concern, seafarers rights. But much of the analysis still stops short of naming the enabling root cause. In reality, these developments are the predictable outcome of what the ITF named as the flag of convenience (FOC) system more than 75 years ago – a business model deliberately designed to obscure ownership, fragment jurisdiction, and weaken enforcement with direct and devastating consequences for seafarers, for maritime security, and for the rule of law at sea. Much of the current coverage describes the symptoms but avoids the diagnosis. False flags – the practice of flying fake flags disowned by the given registry – are not mere anomalies. They are, fundamentally, a natural outcome of the FOC system. Under the FOC model, shipowners can register vessels in states with no meaningful genuine link to ownership, management, or operation – in direct contravention of international law under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. In exchange for registration fees, those flag states offer minimal scrutiny and weak enforcement, effectively selling enforcement-free sovereignty. As Mark Dickinson, general secretary of UK maritime union, Nautilus, explained to the BBC, when it comes to spiralling seafarer abandonment, including on shadow fleet ships, FOC states have demonstrated, “a complete derogation of responsibility” towards their fleets and the crews who sail on them”. He then rightly outlined the demand, in line with international law, for there to always be “a genuine link between shipowners and the flags under which they sail”. The jurisdictional ambiguity that allows ships to shift identities, manipulate registries, or operate without effective oversight is not accidental. It is built into the business model. This is why false flags and shadow fleets have continued to proliferate despite increased sanctions, surveillance, and massively increased media and political attention. Industry profits from opacity. Flag states – in the case of the worst offenders, with flags often outsourced to unscrupulous overseas business interests – profit from regulatory leniency. Together, they create exactly the conditions in which fraudulent registries, identity switching, and impunity thrive. And the same governance failures driving false flags also produce severe human consequences. Last month, the International Transport Workers’ Federation released new data showing that 2025 was the worst year on record for seafarer abandonment. More than 6,200 seafarers were abandoned across 410 ships, a 32% increase on the previous year and the sixth consecutive year of rising cases. When ownership is hidden and flag state responsibility is diluted, seafarers are left exposed to a perfect storm of profit driven abuse. Abandonment, unpaid wages, unsafe vessels, denial of shore leave, and the absence of legal protection are not incidental outcomes. They are direct consequences of a system designed to enable the evasion of responsibility. The same dynamics were laid bare during the global crew change crisis, when hundreds of thousands of seafarers were trapped on board for months beyond their contracts. Once again, fragmented jurisdi