IMO and the application, compliance with and enforcement of safety regulations in the APEC Region IMO and the application, compliance with and enforcement of safety regulations in the APEC Region Speech given by Mr. W.A. O'Neil, Secretary-General of IMO International Symposium on Safer Shipping in the APEC Region, Sydney (Australia), 6-7 March 2001 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure for me to be with you today at what I am confident will be a most productive and constructive meeting, and I would like to thank the organisers of this symposium, the Australian Department of Transport and Regional Services, for inviting me to speak to you. The stated aim of this symposium is to develop proposals for a major statement by APEC Transport Ministers on safer shipping in the APEC region. There is no doubt that this is a challenging task. Asia-Pacific is a region which embodies so many contrasts that it can fairly be described as unique. Within this community, some of the world’s fastest growing and most vibrant economies rub shoulders with others that suffer the problems of poverty, overcrowding and lack of resources. Yet, collectively, the countries of the region make an extremely powerful group. I note that the latest figures, which are for 1999, show that your Member economies had a combined Gross Domestic Product of over US$18 trillion and some 43.9 percent of global trade. In coming together at events such as this, you seek to emphasise and explore what you have in common rather than your differences. This is to be applauded, as is the fact that one of those uniting factors is clearly a desire for a safer shipping industry. Having said that, you will no doubt be aware that I have spoken many times in the past of my concerns about a regional approach to unilaterally establishing safety regulations for the shipping industry. International shipping, rather like the Asia-Pacific region, is also unique. Its prime assets physically move from country to country, from one region to another and through many jurisdictions. Therefore it seems to me that common sense would dictate that any regime intended to govern the standards to which ships are designed, built, manned and operated has to be a global one. IMO was formed with the expressed objective and mandate of establishing and developing that global regulatory framework. It is worth recalling the significant part that APEC Members currently play in shaping and defining that international safety regime. At IMO, APEC Members work together with others to build a standardized regulatory framework that applies to all ships, no matter where they originate or where they may be sailing to. IMO now has 158 Member States and two Associate Members and has granted consultative status to 57 non-governmental bodies and concluded 37 Agreements of Co-operation with inter-governmental organizations. All of these may participate in the Organization’s committees and sub-committees. It is through this committee structure, and eventually the IMO Council and Assembly, that the building blocks for a safer international shipping industry have been laid. It is worth noting that more than one third – 11 out of 32 - of the IMO Council Members are also Members of APEC. Thus APEC Members help to set IMO’s work programme. They then participate fully in the detailed work of developing and refining the conventions and other instruments which are IMO’s primary product and which set the standards for shipping around the world. But their responsibility for maritime safety and pollution prevention and control extends beyond IMO’s committee rooms. IMO itself has no mandate to implement directly or to enforce its regulations. That is the responsibility of flag States, with the port State control regimes providing a secondary line of defence to check that the rules are properly applied and put into practice on board the ships themselves. Perhaps in the not too distant future IMO will be called upon to take a more positive role in the implementation stage to assist Members to verify that the desired standards are being met. As flag States, APEC Members have clear responsibilities. For those that are short of trained personnel or are uncertain as to how to discharge those responsibilities effectively, IMO has a technical co-operation programme in place that provides expertise and guidance. Assistance of this nature offers an excellent opportunity for those members of a diverse organisation like APEC which have expertise and funding to help their associates who want to have a quality operation. We have also developed a self-assessment scheme which is designed to help flag States identify where their shortcomings in discharging their responsibilities may lie. Completed self-assessment forms can identify gaps in knowledge, expertise and resources which the technical co-operation programme could help to bridge. During the working group sessions of this seminar, delegates will be trying to establish appropriate quality benchmarks for APEC-economy flag States. When undertaking this task I would urge you to bear in mind that the Flag State Assessment scheme is a part of this process and can be taken as a statement of intent from States that they really care about the quality of the shipping that flies their flags and are committed to improving it. When the IMO Sub-Committee on Flag State Implementation met just a week ago, only 32 countries had submitted their Self-Assessment Forms, which is disappointing. I believe that regional bodies such as APEC should encourage its Members to do this as soon as possible. I understand that not all countries are equally equipped to carry out their responsibilities as flag States. But I do believe that they should be equally willing to demonstrate their intention to do so. While IMO is considered to be basically a technical body we recognize that, although extremely important, advances in technology alone are not the sole answer to improving safety at sea. The other, literally, vital factor is people and we have therefore extended the emphasis on people to be a major part of our mandate for the 21st century. A frequently quoted statistic is that 80 per cent of accidents at sea are due to human error. But, when you reflect that people are instrumental in every aspect of the maritime industry, from ship design, shipbuilding and equipment, through ship management, operations and maintenance to ancillary activities such as insurance, classification and inspection, it would perhaps be nearer the truth to say that almost all marine casualties and incidents involve, in one way or another, human factors. This is why IMO is now fully committed to addressing human factors when it tackles any subject. Tangible evidence of the importance of this will be the unveiling of a memorial to seafarers at the IMO headquarters in London later this year. The sculpture will be a constant reminder to delegates, staff, visitors and the general public of what a major part of the work of the Organization is all about – the safety of life at sea. It is being funded from a trust fund which, to the extent that money is available, will also be used to establish a chair in maritime safety and marine pollution prevention at the World Maritime University in Sweden, and to provide fellowships to students at selected maritime training institutes around the world. All of this marks a clear change from the historical pattern in which, as its first option, the shipping community would seek a technical or engineering-based solution. Technology still plays a major role in what we do at IMO, as exemplified by recent high-profile initiatives such as the requirement for ships to carry "black-box" voyage data recorders, electronic navigational charts, global positioning system equipment, automatic identification system transponders and the enormous amount of work undertaken in developing proposals that will be considered at the next meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee to accelerate the phase-out of single-hull oil tankers. But we are now concerned far more than ever before with the men and women who operate ships; the people who possess the skills and experience to prevent a disaster or lack the competence or concentration to cause one. We must make sure that, as technology moves on, the quality of the people who have to use it and their training, move apace. It is a process that begins with basics. Are they being properly selected? Are they being properly educated, trained and certified? Is there an effective career structure which will attract the calibre of people the industry needs? I welcome very much the fact that the human element has been singled out as one of the six principal topics for consideration at this symposium. I am also looking forward with keen interest to hearing from Peter Morris on the findings of the International Commission on Shipping which, within its brief of enquiring into and reporting on means of combating sub-standard shipping, has, I understand, placed considerable emphasis on an investigation of human factors. At IMO, we have long since understood that it is no longer acceptable to say that "human error" is the result of carelessness or incompetence. Our goal is to get behind this simplistic response and find the root causes of the problem. Seafarers are trained to work in a harsh and frequently unfriendly environment and most have developed highly professional skills which serve the industry exceptionally well. But this poses vexing questions as to why intelligent, well trained, experienced and essentially competent people still occasionally make critical mistakes despite advances in technology designed to make them more efficient and, by inference, safer in the way they operate. It is imperative that we examine this matter in greater detail and determine the psychology of accidents so that, with this knowledge, suitable steps can be taken to deal with the problem. We are aware that throughout the world fatigue has been recognized as a contributor to many transport accidents. As long ago as 1993, IMO adopted a resolution referred to as "Fatigue factors in manning and safety" and work on the subject has continued ever since, considering how fatigue affects maritime safety and how to develop strategies to combat it. Other factors, such as stress, job security, physical conditions on board the ship, isolation and crew welfare all play a part and are coming increasingly under the microscope. One the most important components of IMO’s drive to improve the quality of seafarers is the implementation of the 1995 amendments to the STCW Convention. As you know, the first so-called "White List" of countries deemed to be giving full and complete effect to the Convention has now been published. I know this is an issue that will be in sharp focus at this gathering, as several of the world’s most important labour supply countries are APEC Members. I believe that we have not really got the message across as to just how demanding and challenging a task it was to gain a place on the White List. For most countries, preparation of the submissions to IMO required not only reporting on national laws, training requirements, standards and systems in place, but also ensuring that all of those elements met the revised Convention standards and could pass the scrutiny of independent persons with detailed knowledge of those requirements. The fact that many countries had to change their national laws, improve their training and certification procedures and cull out sub-standard training institutions is a clear demonstration that changes were needed and that the global regulatory process is serious and is taking even greater account of the human element. The second major plank of IMO’s strategy to address the human issues in shipping is the ISM Code, which was adopted in the early 1990s to provide a blueprint for the way shipping companies manage and operate their fleets and to promote the development of a widespread safety culture and environmental conscience in shipping. It defines the company’s responsibility for safety and ensures senior management can be held more easily accountable, thereby seeking to ensure that safety is given the priority it deserves. The Code was made mandatory for certain types of ships in 1998 and will become mandatory for the balance in 2002. IMO, its Member Governments and the world maritime community at large are quite rightly expecting the code to deliver a great deal in terms of a greater emphasis on safety in the corporate mind. I am determined that the implementation of the code should not become merely a "paper exercise" as some commentators have stated. Last month I announced my intention to have an assessment made of the impact of the Code so far, and I expect to be able to report on the outcome of this examination to the Maritime Safety Committee in the near future. I am convinced that the sharing of information gathered by individual regional port State control groupings will have an increasingly significant impact in our crusade against sub-standard shipping and I am again encouraged to note that one of the key topics you will be discussing at this symposium is the integration of the various regional port State control agreements into a global PSC network. There can be little doubt that the sharing of information about ships that trade between regions, as well as moves to harmonise and standardize procedures and to agree on standards of training and recruitment of inspectors throughout the international PSC regime can only be for the good. This is something in which you are well placed to take a strong initiative, as in some instances your Membership includes signatories to more than one MOU. The progress already made by the principal port State control agreement for the Asia-Pacific region, the Tokyo MOU, has laid a firm foundation and is already having an impact on the quality of ships calling at ports in the region. It is interesting to note that the Tokyo MOU became effective in 1994, and by 1999 the number of annual inspections had reached 14,921 – some 62 per cent of ships operating in the region. No fewer than 50,136 deficiencies were discovered, and 1,071 ships were detained. Each one represents a small but significant tightening of the safety net and a potential disaster possibly having been averted. Over the next two days you will be considering many other ways in which a regional demand for safer shipping can be translated into something tangible and effective. You will be considering the outcome of a thorough-going, 14-nation study undertaken in 1999 by the Asia Pacific Maritime Institute on behalf of the APEC maritime transport working group to identify specific mechanisms used by individual APEC countries to promote safer shipping and combat sub-standard shipping in the region. You will be weighing the likely success of proposals to establish a "white list" of quality flag States in the region. You will also be assessing ways of establishing a regional support infrastructure for shipping that embraces elements such as insurance and P&I and identifying the continuing part that bodies such as the Asian Shipowners’ Forum, the Association of Maritime Education and Training Institutions in Asia Pacific and the Asia Marine Consortium can play in achieving your common goals. In concert with these initiatives, IMO will be continuing its updating of safety standards but, with due regard for the Objectives of the Organization in the 2000s, as adopted by the last Assembly, will be concentrating mainly on: ·the vetting of the balance of the countries which have made submissions under STCW; ·the implementation of the ISM Code on the remainder of the world's fleet and assessment of the effectiveness of the Code so far, on the first tranche of ships; ·the review of all aspects of safety related large passenger vessels to ensure that the rules match the fact that the number of people on board has increased dramatically; ·the revision of standards for bulk carriers; ·additional matters related to the human element such as fatigue; ·places of refuge (or sheltered areas); ·the expansion of VTS; and ·the questions of piracy and illegal migration by sea. Piracy and armed robbery against ships has unfortunately reached worrying dimensions in certain parts of your region and I fully share the grave concern of the MSC, Member Governments and the industry over recent developments highlighting the problem and am fully behinf the "assessment" missions being undertaken by IMO. You have the opportunity and, I believe, the desire to set a positive and far-reaching agenda for maritime safety in this region over the next few years which will be completely compatible with the objectives of the international shipping community. I wish you every success in your deliberations at this symposium and particularly in developing a statement for APEC Transport Ministers on maritime safety. Thank you. NEWSROOM Speeches by the Secretary-General Speeches 2006 Speeches 2005 Speeches 2004 Speeches 2003 Speeches 2002 Speeches 2001 Speeches 2000 Speeches 1999 Mr Mitropoulos - biography Opening speeches of IMO meetings