When the Legal Committee (LEG) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) met last week in London, one of the many important topics on the agenda was the development of Guidelines on fair treatment of seafarers detained on suspicion of committing maritime crimes.
Further to discussions in a working group, the committee agreed to establish a correspondence group to further develop the Guidelines and the concept of a database of incidents involving detention of seafarers suspected of committing maritime crimes to be further considered at the next LEG session.
BIMCO supports the development of guidelines as well as related work to develop a database and took the opportunity to inform the committee that BIMCO is planning activities to raise awareness about drug smuggling in South and Central America, where it seems there is a lack of understanding of how smugglers abuse ships without knowledge of the crew and/or the owner.
The LEG also discussed:
• Abandonment of seafarers
• Risks posed by “dark fleet”
• Fraudulent registration of ships
• Measures to assess the need to amend liability limits
• Judicial Sale of Ships
• HNS Convention
A full roundup of the meeting can be found here https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/MeetingSummaries/Pages/Legal-Committee,-110th-session.aspx
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News Source: https://www.bimco.org/insights-and-information/contracts/20230405-imo-legal-committee
12.04.2023
