THE WORLD MARITIME DAY THEME REFLECTS ON THE EVOLUTION OF SHIPPING AND MARITIME SAFETY PARADIGMS

The theme "Navigating the Future: Safety First," September 26, 2024, marks the 50th anniversary of adopting the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).

Since 1978, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has celebrated World Maritime Day on the last Thursday of September. More than a commemorative date, World Maritime Day promotes discussions on a relevant topic not only to the maritime community but to all humanity.

In 2024, the theme is "Navigating the Future: Safety First." The choice is closely linked to the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the latest version of SOLAS, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea.

SOLAS was first adopted in 1914 as a direct response to the Titanic tragedy in 1912. Reflecting on SOLAS 50 years after the adoption of its most recent version highlights the need to overcome a paradigm: improving safety and regulations should not be a reaction to disastrous or tragic events.

Navigating the future demands immediate concern for safety and the impacts of technological development. Risk prevention must increasingly replace risk response. Although this concern is not new, a false dichotomy remains between technological development and risk management.

This dichotomy undoubtedly partly stems from the broadening of the concept of risk. The inclusion of the necessary environmental protection in the international agenda has led to the discovery of various forms of environmental impact, which must be considered in new technological ventures. Nevertheless, new technologies must also consider how to respond to still-imperfect scenarios.

However, the dichotomy is apparent, and the theme of World Maritime Day helps to address this. The IMO has increasingly sought to anticipate the regulatory agenda to align regulation with the speed of technological ventures. Technological development and environmental protection are reconcilable and interdependent: new technologies are the answer to sustainable development.

World Maritime Day also seeks to cooperate with the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, which are celebrated on September 25. This year's theme mainly contributes to five of these goals:

I) SDG 7: seeking to expand access to and development of sustainable energy;

II) SDG 8: promoting sustainable economic growth based on decent work relations;

III) SDG 9: fostering adequate and resilient infrastructure;

IV) SDG 13: encouraging measures to combat climate change;

V) SDG 14: building sustainable use of the oceans.

Translating these objectives and incentives into concrete measures, the IMO understands that to safely navigate the future; we must continue to develop regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote the use and development of alternative fuels, implement measures for digitization and automation of processes, better understand autonomous ships, and implement audit mechanisms, among others.

Moreover, the World Maritime Day theme brings a relevant perspective to the discussion for Member States. In recent years, the IMO has adopted a goal-based regulatory model, which better accommodates rapid technological changes and developments. The difficulty of updating prescriptive texts demonstrates the usefulness of goal- and objective-oriented models, ensuring immediate applicability even to new developments. The Polar Code and the IP Code are already good examples of this methodology.

For domestic law, adopting a goal-based regulatory paradigm will also offer advantages. As with international law, the modernization of applicable norms and regulations is slow, ratification processes are lengthy, and legislation is often updated by people who are not familiar with the intricacies of new technologies.

Adopting standards aimed at achieving goals, whether reducing gas emissions or environmental conservation, does not diminish effectiveness; in fact, it enhances efficiency. Indeed, goal-oriented standards and regulations contribute to the legal certainty necessary for the development of new technologies in shipping.

Maritime navigation is a derived-demand activity, making legal certainty even more relevant than in other industries. Notably, the permanence of standards facilitates and reduces the costs of contracts whose obligations are fulfilled over long periods. In this sense, scientific research for developing new technologies, which takes several years, will have greater predictability regarding the applicable law they will encounter upon realization.

In the navigation of the future, technological development and sustainable development go hand in hand on a journey towards discoveries that should contribute to the fair and equitable development of humanity, and the theme of World Maritime Day 2024 helps to realize this swiftly.