IMO Council to embrace multilingualism

Multilingualism

Namely, in the spirit of multilingualism embraced by the United Nations system, the IMO Council agreed that Arabic, Chinese and Russian should be added as authentic texts of the IMO Convention. These three new languages will supplement the current authentic texts in English, French and Spanish.

What is more, IMO decided to expand the size of the Council, as well as extend the term of its Members. The approvals were made at the 33rd extraordinary session of the Council, which was held virtually on 8 April 2021.

Council expansion

The IMO Council will increase by 12 Member States, from its current 40 Members to 52. Expanding the size of the IMO Council would see 12 seats allocated to Categories (a) and (b) each and 28 seats to Category (c). The categories are:

• (a) – States with the largest interest in providing international shipping services
• (b) – States with the largest interest in international seaborne trade each;
• (c) – States not elected under (a) or (b) above, which have special interests in maritime transport or navigation and whose election to the Council will ensure the representation of all major geographic areas of the world.

Member term length

According to the approved amendments, Council Members would remain in their roles until the end of the next two consecutive regular sessions of the Assembly, after which they would be eligible for re-election. Since Assemblies are usually held every two years, this would usually mean that Members would serve a four-year term.

The amendments will now be transmitted to the thirty-second session of the IMO Assembly, to be held from 6 to 15 December 2021, for consideration with a view to adoption. Until the amendments enter into force, the current structure will remain the same.

The proposed amendments would require acceptance by two thirds of the IMO Membership, or 116 Member States for entry into force.