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Back to SSG 4
The IMO headquarters in London. Photo: IMO
IMO – 60 years
of shaping shipping |
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Sixty years ago at a conference in Geneva, the United Nations adopted a convention establishing a special body for shipping. The Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO) got off to a slow start and it took ten years for the convention to come into force and the agency to have its first assembly. Since then, the IMO as we know it today has changed both name and objectives and is now the source of approximately 50 conventions and hundreds of codes, guidelines and recommendations.
Shipping is probably the oldest international industry and several customs have derived naturally during centuries of interaction and cooperation between states. The obligation of ships to aid other seafarers in distress and a vessel’s right to take refuge in a foreign port regardless of nationality was universally acknowledged long before the IMO was created.
The need for formalizing ancient customs into legal treaties and agreeing on common safety rules was jump-started by the disaster of the Titanic in 1912, which initiated the international convention for the Safety of Lives at Sea (SOLAS). SOLAS is till regarded as the most important treaty and stipulates how ships are to be constructed to be as safe as possible and covers all aspects, from stability and fire protection to the carriage of dangerous goods and port security.
Major revisions
The IMO convention adopted sixty years ago has little in common with its modern counterpart. The emphasis then was on economic action to promote freedom and work against unfair restrictive practices and while safety is mentioned briefly in the original articles, there is no reference to marine pollution or the environment. Much had changed over the ten years that passed since the adoption of the convention and before it came into force, so the first task for the assembly was some major revisions of both objectives and constitution.
The disaster of the Herald of Free Enterprise stressed the need for a safety management system. |
The Torrey Canyon disaster
In the decade to come another major disaster would again prove important for the development of the maritime legal treaties. This time the catalyst was the 120,000 ton tanker Torrey Canyon, carrying a full load of crude oil, which ran aground off the Isles of Scilly in March, 1967. It became evident that the OILPOL convention of 1954 was outdated and that better tools were needed to tackle incidents like this in the future. Governments were enabled to act if an accident in international waters threatened its coastline with pollution and in 1973 the MARPOL convention was adopted to tackle both operational and accidental pollution.
The Torrey Canyon disaster also initiated the Civil Liability Convention, which improved the system for compensation of victims of oil spill damage after an accident at sea. A legal committee was established to deal with the compensation and in 1975 the new Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) was formed to handle environmental issues.
Almost to the day twenty years after the Torrey Canyon, the ro-ro ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized and sank shortly after leaving Zeebrugge and 193 lives were lost. The inquiry stated that the disaster was caused by negligence at every level of the company’s hierarchy and the failure of the shore management to give proper and clear directions.
ISM code forerunner
IMO reacted and a series of amendments to SOLAS were adopted and put into force in just 18 months. These were the first guidelines for a safety management system and the forerunner of the ISM code that has been mandatory since 1998. Further major changes were made to SOLAS after the sinking of the Estonia in September, 1994, with the loss of more than 850 lives.
In response to the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, the Assembly held a diplomatic conference on maritime security. Earlier guidelines on the matter originated from the 1985 Achille Lauro incident, when four armed Palestinians hijacked the Italian cruise ship, killing an American passenger before agreeing on terms to end the siege. New regulations were adopted during the conference and in 2004 the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) was implemented.
Contemporary shipping is shaped by the IMO from the drawing board to the scrap yard and the organization continues the never-ending work to keep up with an ever changing world. As it happens, several anniversaries take place during 2008; 60 years since the adoption of the IMO Convention, 50 years since the convention came into force and in June the IMO Council will celebrate its 100th meeting. No wonder the theme for World Maritime Day in 2008 is “IMO: 60 years in the service of shipping”.
//Cecilia Österman
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IMO in brief
The Secretary-General Mr Efthimios E. Mitropoulos has been elected twice for a four-year term in 2003 and 2006. His mandate runs until 31 December 2011.
IMO has 167 member states that together make up the Assembly.
40 of these member states participate in the Council, which is the executive body.
68 non-governmental organisations have consultative status.
The four main committees are the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC); the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC); the Legal Committee and the Technical Cooperation Committee.
IMO adopts conventions and it is then up to the member states to implement them.
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Adopting a convention
The Titanic disaster in 1912 initiated the international convention for the Safety of Lives at Sea (SOLAS). Photo: SSG archives
It is usually one of the main committees that suggests new conventions or amendments to existing ones. After the assembly has authorized the work to proceed, a draft is drawn up by the committee or a specialized sub-committee. During this work, intergovernmental and international non-governmental organizations can give their views and advice.
The draft convention is reported to the council and the assembly with a recommendation that a conference be held for a formal adoption. The conferences are open, on an equal footing, to all governments that would normally participate in a United Nations conference. After any necessary changes have been made in order to make it acceptable to a majority of the governments, the convention is adopted by the conference. Usually, the convention is open for signature by states during a period of 12 months.
The drafting and adoption of a convention in IMO can take several years to complete, although there have been cases where the process has been accelerated in a response to an emergency situation.
A long process
The adoption is only the first stage of a long process. Before the convention comes into force it has to be accepted formally by individual governments. The conditions vary but it is often required that the convention is accepted by a certain number of states, representing a certain percentage of the world’s gross tonnage. Afterwards follows a time of grace to enable the states to take necessary measures for implementation. At present, IMO conventions come into force within an average of five years after adoption.
In early conventions, amendments came into force only after a percentage of states, usually two thirds, had accepted them. This normally meant that more acceptances were required to amend a convention than were originally required to bring it into force in the first place. This led to long delays in bringing amendments into force.
To remedy the situation a new amendment procedure was devised. Instead of requiring that two thirds of the parties accept the amendment, the “tacit acceptance” procedure provides that an amendment comes into force at a particular time unless objections are received from a specified number of states. The tacit acceptance procedure is incorporated into the majority of IMO’s technical conventions and has greatly speeded up the amendment process.
//Cecilia Österman
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Latest update 21-02-2008 10:30
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 CURRENT SSG |
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No 24/2008
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| CURRENT SST |
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No 1/2012
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2008