ICS Meets With Ministers To Discuss Arctic Shipping
Oslo Summit, 5th of June 2013 At a Summit in Oslo on 5 June, Board Members of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) met with Ministers from major shipping nations and the Secretary General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to discuss Arctic Shipping.The Oslo 2013 Maritime Summit, coordinated by the Norwegian Government and attended by Ministers and senior officials from Greece, Japan, Norway, Russia, Singapore, United States and the European Commission, underlined the need for government and industry cooperation in order to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Arctic in a way that reconciles the need for both environmental and economic sustainability. ICS Chairman, Masamichi Morooka, explained: "ICS was keen to stress the importance of Arctic nations avoiding unilateral measures that might cut across IMO Conventions or the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea." He stressed the immediate priority for ICS was to continue to work within IMO to assist in the completion and adoption by governments of the IMO Polar Code, which is expected to become mandatory via amendments to the SOLAS and MARPOL Conventions in 2014. "ICS believes that the development of the Polar Code needs to be risk-based, ...
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