IMO's History








IMO'S 50th ANNIVERSARY - A RECORD OF
SUCCESS




A
RECORD OF SUCCESS

Universal
Standards

Coping
with change

Responding
to emergencies

Speed

Cutting
the accident rate

Preventing
pollution

Improving
implementation

The
future
Developing universal standards
In
the 1950s, each shipping nation had its own maritime laws. There were
comparatively few international treaties and those that existed were not
accepted or implemented by all maritime states. The result was that
standards and requirements varied considerably and were sometimes even
contradictory.
It
was generally accepted that this situation was damaging to shipping safety
at the global level. Not only were standards different, but some were far
higher than others. Shipowners who spent relatively little money on safety
had an economic advantage over their more conscientious rivals and this
was a threat to any serious attempt to improve shipping safety. One of the
most important tasks allocated to IMO when it met for the first time was
to develop international standards which would replace the multiplicity of
national legislation that then existed.
The conventions and other standards developed by IMO have
transformed this position. The vast majority of maritime countries have
ratified the most important conventions, as the table below shows.




Convention
Number
of Parties
% of
world tonnage covered

Load Lines 1966
140
98.19

SOLAS 1974
136
98.27

STCW 1978
130
97.55

Collision Regulations 1972
130
96.20

Tonnage 1969
118
97.51

MARPOL 73/78
102
93.48
There are several reasons for the wide acceptance of IMO measures.
One is that the measures themselves are recognized as being sensible and
practical as well as of high standard. Whenever possible, IMO acts on a
consensus basis and conventions and other measures are normally adopted
unanimously, usually without a formal vote being taken. Another is the
fact that they are mandatory in so many countries that it is now
commercially important for ships to conform to them - if ships are not
built to IMO standards it may be impossible to operate them
internationally. As a result, IMO conventions and codes often have a wider
impact than the statistics indicate. During the 1970s, for example, most
tankers were constructed according to the standards laid down in MARPOL
73/78, even though the Convention was not in force.
One major, but often overlooked, advantage of having international
standards is that safety has been largely removed from the commercial
arena. Although safety does vary from country to country, as is indicated
by the annual casualty statistics, most ships engaged in international
sea-borne trade are built, maintained and operated according to standards
laid down by IMO. Port State control inspections are now being carried out
more and more rigorously and it is becoming increasingly difficult for
substandard ships to escape detection.
Coping with change
The shipping industry has changed more dramatically in the last
thirty years than in any other period in history. In 1959 -when IMO became
operational- the world of shipping was not very different from the one
that had existed twenty years before. Although a ship was launched in 1958
which exceeded 100,000 deadweight tons for the first time, ships of more
than 20,000 tons were still regarded as big. Their design had changed very
little, and the old Liberty ships and T-2 tankers - the standard ships of
World War II - were still to be seen.
Since then, shipping has undergone a revolution. Where once
shipping could be divided into tankers, bulk carriers and dry cargo ships,
there are now many more specialized ships. Container ships - which first
made their appearance in the 1960s - are commonplace. Roll-on/roll-off
ships dominate short sea routes in many parts of the world. There are
ships designed to carry liquefied gases and different types of bulk
chemicals. Motor vehicles are carried around the world in special
transporters. Lighters are towed down rivers, loaded on to purpose-built
ships, transported across the oceans - and then towed up another river to
their final destination. Ships themselves have grown bigger. Barely
fifteen years after the creation of IMO, ships were under construction
which could carry more than half a million tons of oil, five times the
capacity of the world's largest ship in 1958.
The world fleet has grown enormously; in 1958 it totalled 118
million tons and by 1978 had almost quadrupled to 406 million tons. The
world's shipyards produced 9.2 million tons in 1958 and 18.1 million tons
in 1978 (the peak year was 1975 when production topped 34 million tons).

Since the late 1970s, however, technical advances have been
accompanied by economic stagnation in many sectors of the shipping
industry. Too many ships were built in the boom years of the 1970s and
demand for new tonnage declined rapidly after the boom ended. As a result,
the average age of ships has increased steadily until it is now around 15
years. This has implications for safety and the environment because old
ships tend to be more vulnerable to corrosion and breakdown than new ones,
making implementation of high standards more and more essential.
These changes have undoubtedly made the work of IMO more complex;
but at the same time they made it more necessary. It is difficult to see
how international shipping standards could have been introduced and
adapted to meet these changes so quickly and effectively without the
existence of a permanent forum such as IMO.
Responding to
emergencies
In
March 1967 the tanker Torrey Canyon went aground and
spilled around 120,000 tonnes of oil into the sea off the coast of
England. It was the world's first major oil pollution disaster - and
proved to be one of IMO's greatest challenges.
Faced with demands for action from politicians, press and public,
the British Government came to IMO with a series of proposals. These
evolved into a comprehensive action plan which saw major changes being
made to regulations concerning pollution and the beginning of IMO's work
in the legal field.
Twenty years later - almost to the day - the ro-ro ferry
Herald of Free Enterprise capsized and sank with the loss
of 188 lives. Again, the United Kingdom turned to IMO for support. Just
over a year later a series of amendments to SOLAS 1974, based on these
proposals, were adopted and entered into force on 22 October 1989. A
second group of amendments was adopted in October 1988 and entered into
force in April 1990.
Despite this, in September 1994 another passenger ro-ro ferry, the
Estonia, sank with the loss of more than 850 lives. This
time the Secretary-General of IMO, Mr. William A. O'Neil, initiated a
major review of all aspects of ro-ro ferry safety, which led to further
major changes being made to SOLAS. Many of these amendments were already
in force by the time the official report into the disaster was published
in November 1997.
The IMO response to other challenges has been equally positive and
has enhanced the Organization's position as the global forum for maritime
safety and pollution prevention. In 1976-1977, for example, a series of
tanker accidents off the coast of North America led to changes being made
to the SOLAS and MARPOL Conventions. In 1978 the Amoco
Cadiz spill off the coast of France led to an immediate response
from IMO and an important package of measures followed the Exxon
Valdez spill in 1989.
An
emergency of a different kind occurred in 1991 when an outbreak of
hostilities was followed by a major discharge of oil off the coast of
Saudi Arabia. A few months before, the International Convention on Oil
Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation (OPRC), 1990 had been
adopted by IMO to provide machinery for dealing with just such an
emergency. Although the Convention was not yet in force IMO acted as
though it were and, with the support of a number of Member States, set up
a Co-ordination Centre which provided invaluable assistance in tackling
the emergency.
Speed
Responses like these have been made possible by the existence of
IMO as a permanent body, but at the same time the Organization has
streamlined its procedures over the years so that changes to regulations
affecting virtually every ship in the world can be made within a matter of
months.
In
the 1960s, conventions such as SOLAS could only be modified by an
amendment procedure that required the positive acceptance of proposed
changes by at least two-thirds of Parties to the convention. In practice
this procedure proved so cumbersome that most amendments never received
the acceptances required to achieve entry into force and those that did
were out of date long before they did so.
In
the early 1970s, therefore, IMO adopted a new amendment system known as
tacit acceptance. Instead of an amendment entering into force only after
being positively accepted by a specified number of Parties, it was assumed
that the amendment would automatically enter into force on an agreed date
unless it was positively rejected by a specified number of Parties.
Because of the consensus approach used by IMO when adopting measures this
system was approved and has now been incorporated into nearly all of IMO's
technical instruments.
Tacit acceptance has helped, but the main reason for IMO's success
in getting things done quickly is the sense of urgency displayed by its
Member States. The time taken to bring SOLAS amendments into force under
tacit acceptance has been steadily reduced until now urgent measures can
be adopted and in force within 18 months - and they will apply to more
than 98% of world tonnage.
The reaction of IMO to major emergencies certainly compares
favourably to the international response to the Titanic
disaster of 1912. Although an international conference convened
by the United Kingdom met in 1914 and adopted the first SOLAS Convention,
this did not enter into force because of the outbreak of World War I and
the second SOLAS Convention was not adopted until 1929. It entered into
force in 1933, more than twenty years after the accident that brought it
about.
Cutting the accident
rate
Since IMO's primary task is to improve maritime safety, it would be
logical to assume that the Organization's success or failure would be
reflected in the annual casualty statistics. However, the changes that
have taken place since 1959 have been so far-reaching that a
straightforward comparison of the number of ships or tonnage lost would be
misleading.
A
comparison of the percentage of ships lost each year is a little more
useful. Figures issued by the London Underwriters Association show that
during the 1950s under 0.30% of world gross tonnage was lost annually.
This rose during the 1960s to 0.40% in 1969, dropped to 0.31% in 1977 and
then rose sharply to a peak of 0.56% in 1979. From there the total
declined to 0.20% in 1989, rose to 0.40% in 1991 and since then has gone
down steadily. By 1996 the annual total losses had been cut to 0.13% of
total tonnage.
It
is difficult to explain exactly why this happened, but there is evidence
of the beneficial effect of IMO measures on safety (most of which did not
enter into force until the late 1970s). This is shown most clearly in the
case of collisions.
In
1981, the International Association of Institutes of Navigation (IAIN)
submitted to IMO the results of a study analysing the causes of collisions
around the world. It particularly studied the impact of traffic separation
schemes, which had first been recommended by IMO in the late 1960s. These
measures were strengthened through the adoption of mandatory rules
concerning their use in the 1972 Convention on the International
Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, which entered into force in
1977. The main purpose of traffic separation schemes is to separate
shipping moving in opposite directions, thus minimizing the risk of a
head-on collision.
The IAIN study showed that the annual reported incidence of
collisions world-wide in 1956-1960 was 359 compared with 369 in 1976-1980.
Not much of a change, it would seem: yet the figures show that where
traffic separation schemes existed, as in north-western Europe, the number
of collisions had dropped dramatically (to only 10% of the earlier
figure). In other areas, the number of collisions had gone up; off the
coasts of Japan and Korea, for example, the number of collisions rose from
five in 1956-1960 to 125 in 1976-1980.
Other evidence bears out the beneficial impact of IMO measures such
as traffic routeing systems. Before 1969, when the first voluntary traffic
separation scheme was introduced, there were more than 30 collisions a
year in the English Channel. The 1972 Collision Regulations made TS
schemes mandatory and since then the number of collisions in the Channel
each year has been reduced to single figures.
Preventing pollution

During the 1970s, the danger of pollution from ships, especially
oil pollution, seemed to be growing each year. Since then, however, there
is little doubt that the problem has diminished. The main reason is the
adoption (and subsequent implementation) of IMO's anti-pollution measures.

The 1978 Protocol to MARPOL (which entered into force in 1983)
introduced new methods for washing oil cargo tanks which have helped to
minimize operational pollution. Other measures have reduced the threat of
accidental pollution, by putting limits on the size of cargo tanks, and
making mandatory the use of inert gas systems, which cut the danger of
explosions. MARPOL 73/78 has been ratified by countries whose fleets make
up more than 80% of world tonnage, but it is likely that an even higher
percentage of tankers have been built to MARPOL standards. The results
have clearly been beneficial.
A
survey carried out by the United States National Academy of Sciences
indicated that even during the 1970s there was a reduction in pollution
from ships. This was said to be partly because 'positive steps have been
taken to reduce operational and accidental release of petroleum into the
sea'.
There is evidence that this improvement has continued during the
present decade. Figures issued by the International Tanker Owners'
Pollution Federation (ITOPF) indicate that the number of oil spills since
1980 has been reduced by more than 70%.
There is reason to believe that this encouraging trend will
continue. The number of Governments which have ratified MARPOL 73/78 is
increasing all the time and Annexes II (chemicals), III (goods in packaged
form) and V (garbage) are now also in force, meaning that the oceans are
now also being protected against pollution from substances other than oil.
In 1997 an extra annex was added to MARPOL dealing with air pollution and
IMO is considering adding a seventh, designed to prevent the unwanted
carriage of toxic marine life in ballast water.
Improving
implementation
Adopting conventions, codes and recommendations is important - but
they mean nothing if they are not enforced. This is the responsibility of
Governments rather than IMO and, not surprisingly perhaps, the way
regulations are implemented varies from country to country.
IMO has taken steps to eliminate these differences in various ways.
It has developed a technical co-operation programme which provides expert
assistance to Governments which lack experience and resources. The
emphasis has always been placed on training because ultimately this
enables developing countries to build up their own resources and lessen
their dependence on outside expertise. An example is the World Maritime
University in Malmö, Sweden, which was founded in 1982 and provides
training for students who have reached a position of responsibility in
administration, maritime education, shipping or another capacity but who
would benefit from extra training that is not available in their own
countries.
More recently, IMO has established a Sub-Committee on Flag State
Implementation to assist Governments in implementing conventions and other
instruments which they have ratified. It has also encouraged the
development of regional port State control systems. Governments are
entitled to inspect foreign ships visiting their ports to ensure that they
meet IMO standards and experience has shown that this is most effective if
PSC is organized on a regional basis. Ultimately it is hoped that every
region in the world will have its own PSC system - making it more and more
difficult for sub-standard ships to find somewhere to hide.
While Governments have a vital role to play in implementation, so
too do shipping companies. The International Safety Management (ISM) Code
was developed following the Herald of Free Enterprise
disaster and becomes mandatory on 1 July 1998. It defines the
responsibilities of managements for safety more closely than ever before
and will make sure that safety is a priority when decisions are made.
The future
IMO has done a great deal to improve the safety of international
shipping and to reduce pollution from ships. It has shown itself to be an
effective regulatory body and has developed mechanisms for meeting
emergencies effectively and swiftly. But the best way of dealing with an
emergency is not always to introduce more regulations - especially if the
emergency resulted from existing regulations being ignored. Action taken
as a result of an emergency in the long run sometimes turns out to be
over-hasty.
The task for IMO in the future will be to anticipate events, not
just to respond to them. If this is successful then the accident rate and
the loss of life which often accompanies accidents can be reduced still
further. IMO is currently concentrating its efforts on reducing the number
of accidents that are attributed to human error. Since some experts claim
that up to 80% of accidents at sea are caused by people making mistakes,
this is the subject which needs most attention - and which promises the
greatest rewards.






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