SCHUBERT WELCOMES ILO COOPERATION ON SEAFARERS’ IDENTITY

SCHUBERT WELCOMES ILO COOPERATION ON SEAFARERS’ IDENTITY    Captain William G. Schubert, the U.S. maritime administrator, said that cooperating with the International Labor Organization on maritime security can make substantial improvements in the maritime industry.
   “The immediate focus for the Maritime Administration will be on maritime security, improving the competitiveness of U.S.-flag vessels, and ensuring that the United States has sufficient mariners to sustain a viable U.S. merchant marine in the future,” he told a meeting of the Ship Operations Cooperative Program in Philadelphia, Pa.
   Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, deputy director, sectoral activities department at the International Labour Organization, said that her organization has been actively participating in the relevant meetings of the International Maritime Organization on security, starting with a working group established in February 2002 on the initiative of the IMO assembly.
   “One of the issues considered crucial for improving maritime security is ensuring that seafarers have documents enabling their ‘positive verifiable identification’,” she said. ‘Positive’ means that the document holder is the person to whom the document was issued and ‘verifiable’ implies the validation of the authenticity of the document by reference to a source, Doumbia-Henry explained.
   The measures involved would go beyond the requirements of the relevant ILO convention, the Seafarers’ Identity Documents Convention, 1958 (No. 108).
   Seafarers are directly involved in the international transport of goods, including dangerous goods, and they have access to ports, including restricted areas.
   Instead of following a proposal that this issue be handled by the IMO, it has been agreed that the ILO should deal with the issue of seafarers’ identification, the ILO director told the Ship Operations Cooperative Program meeting.
   The ILO will consider a new instrument on seafarers’ identification with a view to adoption in June 2003. The International Labour Office is preparing a report, containing a questionnaire including a preliminary draft of possible provisions of the new instrument on seafarers identification, Doumbia-Henry reported.
   “The IMO bodies have made it clear that if the ILO is unable to meet this expectation, provisions covering the seafarers’ identity document will be included in the Safety of Life at Sea Convention, 1978 (SOLAS), and brought rapidly into effect under the simplified amendment procedure, provided for in that Convention,” she added.