On August 24, 2026, the Dutch Council of State (Raad van State) published its advisory opinion on a bill amending the Wet buitenlandse schepen (Foreign Ships Act) to crack down on the Russian shadow fleet, the tankers and bulk carriers used to evade international oil sanctions. The Council, the Netherlands' highest advisory body on legislation, broadly endorses the government's move to codify enforcement powers at sea but warns that several provisions overstep the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and that the bill is not enforceable in its current form.
The bill (Wetgevingskalender WGK029039, RvS reference W17.26.00234/IV) was referred to the Council on July 16, 2026 by the Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, jointly with the Ministers of Justice and Defence. The Council adopted its advice on August 19, 2026 and published it on August 24, 2026, advising the government to revise the draft and its explanatory memorandum before submitting it to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of parliament.
What new powers does the bill create against the shadow fleet?
The draft creates administrative powers to stop, board and detain stateless vessels, ships sailing under a false flag, and ships flying the flags of two or more states across the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and the high seas. A supervisor can order a ship to a Dutch port, and the operator must bear the costs of the enforcement operation; detention is not lifted until those costs are paid or secured. The bill also lets the Minister refuse a foreign or stateless ship access to a Dutch port and close part of the territorial sea, explicitly to protect underwater cables and pipelines. Criminally, it introduces a ban on sailing without nationality and raises the penalty for sailing under a false Kingdom flag from one year or a third-category fine to four years or a fifth-category fine.
Where does the Council of State say the bill oversteps UNCLOS?
The Council's central critique is that the bill operationalises the room UNCLOS leaves states, but several powers go further than the convention allows. On the high seas and in the EEZ, the flag state has exclusive jurisdiction; UNCLOS Article 110 permits boarding a ship only when there are reasonable grounds to suspect it is stateless or engaged in defined crimes. The Council accepts the boarding and detention of stateless ships on this basis but flags four deviations.
| Bill provision | Council of State concern |
|---|---|
| Bringing a detained stateless ship to a Dutch port | UNCLOS is silent on post-detention powers over stateless ships; the power does not follow directly from the treaty |
| Detaining a ship when nationality is merely suspected or it fails to cooperate | Broader than UNCLOS, which requires reasonable grounds that the ship is stateless |
| Detaining foreign ships in the EEZ for any applicable Dutch law | Clashes with flag-state exclusive jurisdiction; UNCLOS limits coastal-state EEZ enforcement to resource-related matters |
| Equating dual-flag ships to stateless ships | Drops the UNCLOS condition that the ship uses one or the other flag according to circumstances |
The Council advises the government to justify each deviation in the explanatory memorandum or amend the text, and to describe state practice on the post-detention of stateless ships, since the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has not yet ruled on it.
Who enforces the rules, and is the bill enforceable today?
The bill does not name the supervisory body. The Council notes that consultation responses already conclude the draft is not readily enforceable as written, and it cannot assess whether the intended supervisor, widely expected to be the Inspectie Leefomgeving en Transport (ILT), is sufficiently equipped. It also flags that the bill regulates neither the conditions under which a detention can be lifted nor who is authorised to lift it, leaving operators exposed to indefinite port holds. The Council advises the government to set out the prerequisites for effective enforcement and to flesh out the detention-release procedure before the bill proceeds.
What are the penalties and the next legislative step?
Sailing without nationality and sailing under a false Kingdom flag would both carry a maximum of four years' imprisonment or a fifth-category fine. The Council asks the government to justify how those penalties relate to the nature and severity of the offences, and to clarify a delegation clause that would let secondary or ministerial regulation restrict innocent passage in the territorial sea without spelling out what counts as non-innocent passage or the consequences of breaching it. The bill remains a wetsvoorstel, a draft: the next step is submission to the Tweede Kamer, then Eerste Kamer scrutiny, royal assent and publication in the Staatsblad before it can enter into force. No in-force date has been set.
Take advantage of this real-time watch
Operators of dual-flag, convenience-flag or opaque tonnage calling at Rotterdam and Amsterdam should treat the advice as a preview of the powers that will apply once the bill lands, and brief chartering, sanctions and P&I teams now: verify whether any vessel in the fleet could be classified as stateless or dual-flag under the proposed test, map exposure to the port-refusal and territorial-sea-closure powers, and track the parliamentary stages for the final penalty and detention-release rules. Obsidian's per-jurisdiction real-time monitoring surfaces this kind of advisory the moment it publishes, so compliance teams can act before the bill hardens into law.
