The second part of the fourth meeting of the Special Tripartite Committee meeting took place between 5 – 13 May 2022 at the ILO headquarters in Geneva, both face to face and online.
Deirdre Fitzpatrick, Executive Director, SRI made a statement to the meeting as follows:
STC is meeting in historic times. The maritime industry faces many challenges, threating global supply chains and global security. Seafarers’ lives are at risk and seafarers’ rights are being violated. The work of this Committee has never been more important.
Like others, we are pleased to see the recent ratifications of the MLC by Mozambique, Sierre Leone, Oman and San Marino. The MLC is now ratified by 101 States covering more than 96 per cent of the world’s gross shipping tonnage.
But more ratifications are needed to bring the Convention on par with SOLAS, MARPOL and the STCW, the other three pillars of international shipping. These Conventions are ratified by more than 155 States and cover over 99% of the gross tonnage of the world fleet.
Without more ratifications, and despite the principle of no more favourable treatment, there will continue to be ports and regions around the world where ships may sail free of the MLC.
This defeats the objective of a level playing field in the shipping industry.
Turning to the amendments before this meeting, in its General Observation published in December 2020, the Committee of Experts noted that (quote): “the COVID-19 pandemic has severely tested the legal framework set out in the MLC ..”.
Some of the amendments before this meeting are in response to the failings of the MLC during Covid.
The overall number of proposed amendments shows that the MLC continues to be a vital and living instrument, keeping pace with the changes in the industry.
It is important of course that any amendments adopted by the Committee are clear and that they do not give rise to ambiguity or uncertainty.
This will ensure more harmonised implementation and enforcement of the MLC around the world.
In our statement to the STC last year, we referred to the calls to designate seafarers as key workers.
The IMO continues to call on its Members to designate seafarers as key workers, most recently in its Circular No 4204/Add 35/Rev 11 of 22 March 2022.
We believe that the designation of seafarers as key workers should be discussed at a future meeting of this Committee.
We also think that this Committee could bring its expert thinking on the issue of the fair treatment of seafarers following maritime casualties and accidents.
