How oil makes its own laws

Following our earlier blogs on links between the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore secrecy, Le Monde diplomatique has published an article on shipping registries and flags of convenience. Authored by South African based investigative journalist Khadija Sherife, the article explores the ease with which offshore entities can be created in the Marshall Islands (ranked in 2009 as the fastest growing maritime registry in the world), and shockingly confirms the extent to which the oil industry (much like the banking industry and hedge funds) have been able to capture law-making and regulatory processes even in powerful democracies like the United States.

Read the article here. Also see the recent New York Times round up of the issues.