UN passes laws to boost ship safety,curb pollution
Date: 03-Jul-02
Country: UK
The International Maritime Organisation, (IMO), said the stricter regulations tackle fire prevention and detection for ships, human error and ways to curb pollution.
Some of the extra laws modify regulations brought in in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster in 1912. Those safety laws, part of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, have only been revised four times since 1914.
New technology, such as "black boxes", that help crash investigators to identify the cause of any accident, also becomes compulsory for most vessels built after July 1 2002, it said.
"This is a significant day for the shipping industry and for all those involved with shipping," said IMO secretary-general William O'Neil of the Internatinal Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution Prevention (ISM Code) that passed into international law.
"Previously, IMO's attempts to improve shipping safety and to prevent pollution from ships had been largely directed at improving the hardware of shipping - the construction of ships and their equipment. The ISM Code, by comparison, concentrates on the way shipping companies are run," he said in a statment.
The ISM Code concentrates on the human factor involved with accidents at sea and strives to improve the way a ship is managed.
"The Code is helping to raise management standards and practices and thereby reduce accidents and save lives," O'Neil added.
SECURITY ON AGENDA
The stricter laws were hammered out by IMO signatories before the September 11 attacks on the United States but some of the new measures also serve to enhance ship security - a topic already raging across governments and industry since the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York.
Last week the Group of Eight rich nations meeting in Canada agreed on new security measures to prevent attacks on transportation. They included tighter checks on personnel and electronic checks on container shipping as well as automatic ship identification.
The IMO said the new legislation laid down a timetable for the introduction of automatic ship identification systems.
Many ships, including oil tankers and passenger ships, will need to be fitted with the electronic tagging system by July 1 2003 although there are moves, spearheaded by the United States, to bring the mandatory timetable forward.