The IMO... Who Actually Are They?!?

Within the maritime community and especially yachting, there are several misconceptions over who or what the IMO really is. The International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) website describes themselves as:

“a specialized agency of the United Nations, the global standard-setting authority for the safety, security and environmental performance of international shipping. Its main role is to create a regulatory framework for the shipping industry that is fair and effective, universally adopted and universally implemented.”

In other words, its role is to create a level playing-field so that ship operators cannot address their financial issues by simply cutting corners and compromising on safety, security and environmental performance.

Who are the IMO?

Well the first misconception is that there is not a ‘who’ per say. The IMO is made up of 173 Member States (or Flag States/Maritime Administrations) and as many again participating non-governmental international organizations (NGOs) that have been granted consultative status. The IMO is really just a building (located just by Lambeth Bridge on the south bank in London, UK) with secretariat functions that hosts meetings and publishes documents. What is discussed, agreed and subsequently published is all the work of the IMO members.

How does the IMO create new standards?

What is important to understand is that nothing is the will of the IMO itself. It is merely a facilitator of its members. For example following an incident the UK's MCA may approached the technical committees within the IMO with a series of findings from the accident investigations. The members agreed that certain subjects should be placed on the agenda for discussion as new work programs. These items were broken down into the various Sub-Committees and then further into working groups. Specialist from the Members (remember that these are the Member States or Flags States if you prefer) and NGOs draft & discuss the new standards and guidelines. Once these are complete they are sent back up the line to the sub-committees and Committees where they are agreed again by the Members as meeting the original intent of the work program. Once agreed, then the Committees send these changes to the IMO secretariat for publication as Circulars, Resolutions, Codes etc. So new standards that are perceived to come from the IMO are in fact proposed, drafted and agreed by the Flag States, NOT the IMO.

All of this is a huge operation, hosting all these countries, live translating discussions in real time into 5 languages and having technical specialist from all over the world participating in the technical discussions, and the subsequent publications of all the documents. This is why the IMO can take a long time to finalize and publish new requirements. All this is funded by the Member States where their fees are related to tonnage on their flag.

 Regulating the IMO Standards

Once a new standard or circular comes out then how it comes into force is a whole other lengthy topic so let’s take a new convention as an example such as the Ballast Water Management Convention (BWMC). Even after all the participants in the committee at the IMO are happy and the work is complete, we then have to wait for the individual Flags States to adopt the requirements into their national legislation. This again comes back to a misconception that it is the IMO that is regulating shipping. These standards or Conventions are agreed at the IMO, but it is the individual Flag States, entering them into their national legislation that’s beings them into effect. This means that if you are in Italy and have a port state control inspection where a deficiency to the requirements of the BWMC is found, what you are actually in breach of is the national legislation in Italy that brings into force the agreed standards of the convention. The IMO itself has no legal basis to regulate, it is mealy a forum for the international community to agree standards that will then be uniformly applied by the individual Flag States around the globe.