Safer ships and cleaner oceans: thirty years' work of the international maritime organization: Fid-Bau Portal

Safer ships and cleaner oceans: thirty years' work of the international maritime organization

Srivastava, C. P.

In the thirty years that have passed since the International Maritime Organization came into being as a specialized agency of the United Nations, the world of shipping has changed dramatically. Not only has the world fleet grown in size, but the ships themselves have become more specialized and complex. Throughout this revolution, IMO has had two principal tasks—to promote the safety of shipping and to prevent pollution of the seas from ships.

It has sought to achieve these objectives by adopting a series of international conventions, codes and recommendations which now form the basis of shipping legislation in the Organization's 132 Member States. On the safety side there has been a marked improvement in some areas, and the casualty rate has decreased considerably during the 1980s. But accidents still occur and it is clear that more needs to be done, in particular by devoting more attention to more effective shipboard management. Pollution from ships has declined considerably since the early 1970s, thanks in part to the introduction of new measures by IMO which have reduced pollution resulting from shipping accidents, and that caused by routine operational practices, such as the cleaning of oil cargo tanks. The IMO technical assistance programme, which includes such projects as the World Maritime University at Malmo in Sweden, is helping to increase the effectiveness of the measures introduced by IMO.