Joint statement: Shadow Fleet Task Force

The following statement was jointly decided by participating members of the G7 and the Nordic-Baltic 8++: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom:

Further to a commitment made by G7 Foreign Ministers in March 2025, we, members of the G7 and the Nordic Baltic 8++ Shadow Fleet Task Force, met today to enhance our cooperation and move forward to further disrupt and deter the global shadow fleet engaged in illegal, unsafe or environmentally perilous activities. This builds on recent meetings of the NB8++ Shadow Fleet Experts Group.

The task force represents a response to International Maritime Organization (IMO) Resolution A.1192(33) of  December 6, 2023, calling on member states and all relevant stakeholders to promote actions to prevent illegal operations in the maritime sector by shadow fleets, including illegal operations for the purposes of evading compliance with safety or environmental regulations, avoiding insurance costs, circumventing sanctions, or engaging in other illegal activities. These illegal operations pose significant risks to the safety of global shipping and to fragile marine and coastal environments.

We remain deeply concerned by the rise of unsafe and illicit shipping practices by certain operators, with the willing collaboration or negligent oversight of certain state actors, such as the use of older, underinsured, and poorly maintained ships that routinely disable or manipulate their automatic identification systems, and the use of stateless or falsely flagged vessels. We reaffirm our shared commitment to uphold international law, as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

We recognize and underline the important role of flag states, flag registries, port states and coastal states, as well as international and regional organizations, in preventing illegal operations, and call for further collective action to ensure proper control of safety, security, environmental and insurance requirements, in accordance with relevant IMO and International Labour Organization conventions and resolutions. We will continue to advance our modalities for swift information-sharing to inform our sanctions development and other policy responses.