Flag of convenience

A flag of convenience is the flag of a state that registers ships owned by foreign nationals on easy terms, letting an owner choose a registry for low cost, light tax, and relaxed crewing or labor rules rather than for a genuine link to the country. Panama, Liberia, and the Marshall Islands run the largest such open registries and together flag a large share of world tonnage. Critics, led by the ITF, target substandard safety and crew conditions; the practice is lawful, since UNCLOS Article 91 requires only a genuine link without defining it, and port state control is the main check on quality.