International Maritime Organization

The International Maritime Organization (English: International Maritime Organization, IMO, French: Organisation Maritime International ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN ), headquartered in London. Its foundation was decided as early as 1948, the Articles of Association was amended several times, but only 1958 in force on 13 January 1959, she began work. By 1982, she led the designation Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (English: Inter -Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization, IMCO ). Its members include 170 states as full members (2011), as well as associate members the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao of China and the State law to corresponding Denmark Faroe Islands. The Federal Republic of Germany joined on 7 January 1959, the IMO.

Tasks and finance

The IMO has set itself the goal of

  • To settle all purely economic affairs of the merchant shipping internationally,
  • To reduce pollution and to prevent possible throughout
  • To improve ship safety and the safety of navigation in total.

The motto of the IMO is: "Safe, secure and efficient shipping on clean oceans ". Until about two years ago was the motto " Safer ships and cleaner seas". The working languages ​​of the organization are English, French and Spanish, the other official languages ​​are Arabic, Chinese and Russian.

To enforce its policy works together with other UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, in particular in the environmental protection and the improvement of living and working conditions of seafarers. Since its inception, the IMO has developed about 40 international conventions and regularly updated in order to achieve their goals. Treat you as the professional competence and the safety of the crews (especially the STCW Convention), the prevention of accidents (particularly the SOLAS Convention), the Prevention and Control of Pollution from Ships ( MARPOL ), improved search and rescue procedures for distress, as well as protection against piracy and terrorism (especially the ISPS Code as a new chapter XI-2 of the SOLAS Convention ). The after signature, ratification, acceptance or accession of the State concerned under international legally binding agreement to be supplemented by about 700 non-binding resolutions, codes and manuals to facilitate their compliance with international cooperation

The budget is financed through tiered membership fees. The amount of individual contributions depends on the share of each Member State in the world tonnage; Main contributors are ( in this order) Panama, Liberia and the Bahamas.

To improve the training and technical cooperation, the world nautical University ( World Maritime University) was founded in 1983 in Malmö / Sweden founded. This project is co-financed voluntarily by the Swedish Government.

The annual World Maritime Day, the IMO is in each case before the time frame and a motto. As Day of the Seafarer by the IMO on 25 June of each year set to bring appreciation and gratitude to the sailors expressed.

Organs

  • The Assembly ( Assembly) belong to the Member States. It meets every two years in November and sets the work program and budget of the organization.
  • The Council ( Council) is currently (2004 ) consists of 40 members who have a special interest in the maritime domain. It meets between meetings.
  • The Schiffssicherheitsauschuss ( Maritime Safety Committee ) belong to all members. He works as needed with technical safety issues.
  • The Legal Committee (Legal Committee) creates mainly the maritime law standards and codes.
  • The Committee on Technical Cooperation ( Technical Co -operation Committee) deals with projects to support developing countries.
  • The Committee for the Protection of the Marine Environment ( Marine Environment Protection Committee, MEPC) was founded in 1973 and deals with the growing problems of pollution. He / it acts as the Conference of the Parties, the modifications and additions to the MARPOL may decide.
  • The Committee for the Facilitation of Maritime Traffic ( Facilitation Committee) was established in 1991 for issues of standardization and simplification of clearance of ships, passengers and cargo in foreign ports. Since 2008 he has been formally institutionalized.
  • The Secretariat is an approximately 300 -member administrative body; he is led by the Secretary General of the IMO.

Secretary General

The current Secretary General is Sekimizu Koji (Japan). His four-year term began on 1 January 2012. Efthimios Mitropoulos He follows after, who held two terms long the post of Secretary General.

* William Graham was after the death of Ove Nielsen until the end of the scheduled term Acting Secretary General.

Member countries

170 countries are full members; 3 countries are associate members.

In addition, there are many IGOs with observer status and NGOs with consultative status.

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