MV X-Press Pearl disaster: Let there be justice to the nature

In July 2025, the Sri Lanka Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling where it ordered the owners of MV X-press Pearl to pay USD 1 billion as compensation based on the Polluter Pays Principle for the devastating environmental and economic damage caused by the ship’s sinking off the island’s western coast in 2021. The decision delivered in a detailed 361-page judgement by a five-judge bench led by former Chief Justice Murdu Femando, is hailed as a milestone in holding corporate polluters accountable through domestic courts.

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According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the Polluter Pays Principle is not a principle of compensation for damage caused by pollution. Nor does it mean that the polluter should merely pay the cost of measures to prevent pollution. The Polluter Pays Principle means that the polluter should be charged with the cost of whatever pollution prevention and control measures are determined by the public authorities, whether preventive measures, restoration, or a combination of both.

The X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-flagged container ship, caught fire in May 2021 and sank off Colombo after burning for nearly two weeks. Onboard were 1,486 containers, including hazardous chemicals and 78 metric tons of plastic nurdles — small resin pellets used in plastic manufacturing. An estimated 70-75 billion nurdles were released into Sri Lankan waters, blanketing the coastline and causing what experts have described as the world’s worst marine plastic spill.