While the ICS has always supported the eventual entry into force of the Convention, it argued that other governments should not ratify it until \u201cserious questions about how the Convention would be implemented had been properly addressed\u201d.<\/p>\n
These issues include the lack of robustness of the current IMO type-approval process for the expensive new treatment equipment, the criteria to be used for sampling ballast water during Port State Control inspections, and the need for \u2018grandfathering\u2019 of type-approved equipment already or about to be fitted.<\/p>\n
So far, 43 IMO Member States have already ratified the Convention but IMO secretary general Koji Sekimizu says \u201cthe shipping industry is to take action as soon as possible to start preparations for installing ballast water management systems on board existing ships, in advance of the revised implementation schedule agreed by the IMO Assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis would avoid the risk of creating a bottleneck at shipyards during the initial implementation period, when the demand for retrofitting of such systems is expected to be high,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The BWM Convention addresses the problem of aquatic organisms and pathogens being released into non-native environments after being transported around the world in ships\u2019 ballast water.<\/p>\n
The treaty will enter into force 12 months after ratification by 30 States, collectively representing 35% of world merchant shipping tonnage. The number of ratifying states (43) is already sufficient but, at 32.54%, their collective share of world merchant shipping tonnage is not enough to trigger entry into force.<\/p>\n
In a bid to boost the mere 2.46% of world tonnage needed to trigger its entry into force, the IMO and ICS have agreed to encourage IMO Member governments to start thinking about how the requirements of the Convention could be improved.<\/p>\n
ICS says its change of position signals recognition of the \u201creal progress made\u201d by the IMO and Member States. The IMO has agreed, in principle, that any shipowner who has invested in first generation treatment equipment, type-approved under the current G8 guidelines, should not be penalised, provided that the equipment is operated and maintained correctly.<\/p>\n
Despite its change in position, the ICS stressed that it does not mean it thinks all of the many problems associated with the Convention have been fully resolved. \u201cMany of the details of the MEPC Resolution agreed in October still need to be finalised by IMO as a matter of urgency if the Convention is to be implemented smoothly and fairly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has agreed to stop actively discouraging governments that have not already ratified the Ballast Water Management Convention (BWM Convention), in the hope that it will trigger its entry into force sooner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-5206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5206"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=5206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}