All countries to be audited, progress secured for the BWM Convention

IMO Assembly 28 highlights

The IMO has just finalized its 28th Assembly, which is held every second year. The Assembly lasted eight days and there were many items on the agenda, inter alia the IMO budget, reductions of administrative burdens as well as the work on safety and the environment made by the Committees since the last Assembly was held in 2011.

The Assembly decided to make the previously voluntary member State audit scheme mandatory. For a number of years, Denmark has striven to ensure that the IMO member State audit scheme is made mandatory because the actual implementation of IMO instruments by the member States is decisive for safety and pollution prevention. Denmark was the first country that was audited by the IMO, and Denmark has also made auditors available to the IMO. The mandatory auditing will be initiated in January 2016.

Progress was secured with the Ballast Water Management Convention as the Assembly adopted a resolution hereon. The resolution will make easier the implementation of the Convention, which still lacks tonnage in order to take effect. More specifically, the resolution adjusts the application dates so that all ships constructed before the entry into force of the Convention are considered existing ships. Denmark ratified the Convention in 2012 and the hope is that the adoption of the resolution will further other countries’ ratification of the Ballast Water Management Convention and, hence, help bring about the global entry into force of the Convention.

The Assembly also adopted a resolution on the suppression of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa. The resolution expressed deep concern about and condemned the development in piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. The resolution recognized the work done by the coastal States in the region and international organizations to combat piracy, but at the same time stressed the need to increase the anti-piracy measures taken in the region.

Image Credit: IMO Flickr