Member States of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) are being advised to approve changes to the IMO Convention immediately– in order to broaden the dimension of the IMO Council to 52, to show the boosted subscription of IMO.
The message of the changes, which were embraced by the IMO Assembly in December 2021, have actually currently been distributed using the United Nations (C.N. 46.2022), in the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and also Spanish genuine languages.
The United Nations Secretary-General serves as depositary for the IMOConvention The IMO Convention was embraced in 1948, developing the IMO (the initial names was the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO)– this was transformed to IMO in 1982).
The changes to the IMO Convention will certainly broaden the dimension of the Council to 52 Members from 40; expand the regard to its Members to 4 years; and also acknowledge 3 extra language messages as genuine variations of the IMO Convention.
The relocate to broaden the Council shows the enhancing IMO subscription over current years. It will certainly sustain the accomplishment of a rep, well balanced, varied, and also reliable Council, that can sustain the rate of interests of the entire subscription and also guarantees the depiction of all the significant geographical locations of the globe.
The changes to Articles 16, 17, 18, 19( b) and also 81 of the Convention on the International Maritime Organization call for approval by 2 thirds of the IMO Membership, or 117 Member States (based upon the existing subscription of 175 Member States) for access right into pressure.
The IMO Assembly took on a resolution advising the Members of the Organization to approve the changes immediately, with the objective of access right into pressure of these changes by 2025 (Resolution A. 1172( 32 )).
Expansion of the Council
Upon access right into pressure of the changes, the IMO Council will certainly boost by 12 Member States, from its existing 40 Members to 52. Expanding the dimension of the IMO Council would certainly see 12 seats assigned to Categories (a) and also (b) each and also 28 seats to Category (c).
The groups are:
( a)– States with the biggest rate of interest in offering global delivery solutions
( b)– States with the biggest rate of interest in global seaborne profession each;
( c)– States not chosen under (a) or (b) over, which have unique rate of interests in maritime transportation or navigating and also whose political election to the Council will certainly guarantee the depiction of all significant geographical locations of the globe.
Member term size
Under the changes, Council Members would certainly stay in their duties till completion of the following 2 successive routine sessions of the Assembly, after which they would certainly be qualified for re-election. Since Assemblies are normally held every 2 years, this would typically imply that Members would certainly offer a four-year term.
Additional genuine languages
In the spirit of multilingualism welcomed by the United Nations system, the IMO Assembly took on a change to the IMO Convention, such that Arabic, Chinese and also Russian, (which are currently main languages of the Organization), will certainly be included as genuine messages of the IMO Convention, supplementing the existing genuine messages in English, French and also Spanish.
Current Council Members
The checklist of existing Council participants can be found here.
Reference: imo.org
