By Ifham Nizam
Sri Lanka could file cases in Singapore over the X-Press Pearl disaster, as the owners of the shipping company were based there, or in the United Kingdom as the relevant insurance company was in London, Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) Chairman/Senior Attorney at Law Ravindranath Dabare told The Island.President Ranil Wickremesinghe has instructed Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe to file a case against the shipping company at the International Court of Arbitration in Singapore to get compensation.
The Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl container ship carrying a hazardous chemical cargo caught fire on 20 May 2021while at anchorage 9.5 nm off Colombo Harbour due to a chemical leak in a container and burned for 13 days before the fire was put out on 2nd June. The ship along with its hazardous cargo sank afterwards.
Though many environmentalists believe that as much as USD 10 billion should be claimed by the Sri Lankan government from the Singapore flagged ship X-Press Pearl, no action has been taken to obtain compensation, environmentalists say.
Senior Environmental lawyer/Attorney at Law, Dr. Jagath Gunawardena, expressed concern saying that to date, no case had been filed to obtain compensation from the owners of the ill-fated vessel.
He stressed that to get compensation for the damage caused to the marine biodiversity of Sri Lanka by the sinking of that ship, a lawsuit had to be filed and the deadline was May 20, 2023.