The flag state of a commercial vessel is the state under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed.
The flag state has the authority and responsibility to enforce regulations over vessels registered under its flag, including those relating to inspection, certification, and issuance of safety and pollution prevention documents. As a ship operates under the laws of its flag state, these laws are used if the ship is involved in an admiralty case.
The term "flag of convenience" describes the business practice of registering a merchant ship in a sovereign state different from that of the ship's owners, and flying that state's civil ensign on the ship. Ships are registered under flags of convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the regulations of the owner's country.
Panama is currently the world's largest flag state, with almost a quarter of the world's ocean-going tonnage registered there.
Read more about Flag State: Ship Register, Regulations
Famous quotes containing the words flag and/or state:
“Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“Beluthahatchee is a country where all unpleasant doings and sayings are forgotten, a land of forgiveness and forgetfulness. When a woman accusingly reminds her man of something in the past, he replies, ‘I thought that was in Beluthahatchee.’ Or a person may say to another, to dismiss some matter, “Oh, that’s in Beluthahatchee.’”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)