Lack of independent funding holding back human rights progress in shipping
- ‘Not a lot has changed’ in progressing human rights at sea
- Charity was ‘drip fed’ funding because it looked in dark corners
- Independent organisations are crucial in the absence of legal deterrent
Founder of Human Rights at Sea said his organisation had funding cut if what it found didn’t suit its donors
MORALITY is not a necessity in shipping, as long as you can provide well-worded ESG statements.
That’s the view of Human Rights at Sea founder David Hammond, who was forced to close the charity earlier this year because of a lack of funding.
He said that little had progressed in terms of protecting human rights in the shipping industry in the decade since he founded the organisation.
There was an immense amount of money to be made in shipping, Hammond said, “therefore you could argue that morals are not needed in any depth, just superficial ESG statements”.
Hammond’s comments come in the wake of a disappointing set of results from last year’s International Maritime Organization/Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association survey, which showed a distinct lack of progress when it comes to greater female representation in the shipping industry.
He said there been a lot of change in the way human rights are protected at sea since the charity was founded more than a decade ago, though awareness about possible breaches is far higher than it was.
“Stunted is a good word” for shipping’s growth in this space, Hammond said.
“When we look at the stunting, a good example is the bullying and harassment that has not changed.”
Hammond pointed to the focus on harassment on 2025’s day of the seafarer (celebrated on June 25), which he said was evidence of failure of the industry in dealing with bullying at sea.
The age-old, or “billion-dollar question” as Hammond put it, is enforcement. Unless there was a legal deterrent behind it, any human rights regulation became a “should do” rather than a “must do”, he said.
That’s why, in his view, there is a greater need for self-sustaining and independent organisations to “call out” human rights abuses.
“The ecosystem of the current maritime welfare environment is one of reliance on income from the industry,” Hammond said.
“Therefore, in reality, the welfare organisations cannot speak truth to power without jeopardising the hand that feeds.”
Independence meant relying on philanthropic funding from outside of shipping, he said, or self-generated income, which is what Human Rights at Sea did through its commercial arm, Human Rights at Sea International.
Hammond said he believes the reason Human Rights at Sea did not receive “significant” funding and the reason it ultimately closed was the “fear of the impacts that we would have from looking in dark corners”.
“I believe that was also one of the reasons that we were drip fed money, but we were never given concerted, large, sustained funding streams because we were successful.”
There was an alternative to this model though, Hammond said. He explained that his organisation had recently worked with the UK government on the fishing industry in particular, during which his organisation was given “full and unfettered access” to “provide the hard truths that were needed”.
But that was not the norm, Hammond told Lloyd’s List. He said that Human Rights at Sea even saw its funding withdrawn on occasions where its area of focus was not in the interest of members of the funding board.
Ultimately, Hammond sees the future of organisations such as Human Rights at Sea as having a hybrid model, where a commercial arm can transparently fund the charitable arm, which can look into the “dark corners” he mentions.
Without that independence, organisations will either close, like his has, or be forced to compromise to secure survival.
Shipping wants to police itself, but unless independent watchdogs are allowed to lift up the carpet properly, it will have a hard time convincing the outside world that it is capable of that.
