Ingangsdatum: 26-02-2004
THE ASSEMBLY,
RECALLING Article 15(j) of the Convention on the International Maritime Organization concerning the functions of the Assembly in relation to regulations and guidelines concerning maritime safety and the prevention and control of marine pollution from ships,
NOTING the provisions of regulations V/31, VII/6, VII/7-4 and VIII/12 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974, as amended, concerning ship reports in the event of dangers or incidents,
NOTING ALSO the provisions of article 8 of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), 1973, as amended by the Protocol of 1978 thereto concerning ship reports in the event of incidents,
CONSIDERING that, in addition to the circumstances giving rise to mandatory reporting where the organizations to which reports are to be made have already been designated, it would be useful for the master of a ship in need of assistance to use the same contact point in each coastal State legitimately affected by that ship.s situation, particularly in connection with the search for a place of refuge,
CONSIDERING ALSO that States have the right to receive initial information and thereafter be kept informed of marine salvage operations conducted off their coasts at the initiative of parties with a legitimate interest in a ship in need of assistance,
CONSIDERING FURTHER that it would be useful for coastal States and easier for shipmasters if any organization with responsibility for receiving reports and thereafter continuing to maintain contact with a ship in need of assistance and its owner bore, in all those States, a common acronym representing the minimum common duties laid down by the Organization,
CONSIDERING FINALLY the difficulty for the master to assess, when an accident occurs aboard the ship, whether there will be a need for marine assistance (salvage) or rescue of persons aboard and, in relation to rescue proper, the value to the MRCC of being informed as soon as possible of problems experienced by the ship concerned, so as to prepare an appropriate search and rescue operation should the need for such an operation arise at a later stage,
HAVING CONSIDERED the recommendations made by the Maritime Safety Committee at its seventy-sixth and seventy-seventh sessions, the Marine Environment Protection Committee at its forty-eighth session, and the Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation at its forty-ninth session,
1. RECOMMENDS that coastal States establish a maritime assistance service (MAS) for the purpose of:
(a) receiving the reports, consultations and notifications required by the IMO instruments referred to in Annex 1 to the present resolution;
(b) monitoring the ship.s situation if a report, as referred to in paragraph (a) above, discloses an incident that may cause the ship to be in need of assistance;
(c) serving as the point of contact between the master and the coastal State concerned, if the ship.s situation requires exchanges of information between the ship and the coastal State but is not a distress situation that could lead to a search and rescue operation;
(d) serving as the point of contact between those involved in a marine salvage operation undertaken by private facilities at the request of parties having a legitimate interest in the ship and the coastal State, if the coastal State concerned decides that it should monitor all phases of the operation,
2. URGES Governments to issue national instructions advising their MAS of the authority or organization:
(a) to which it should transmit information obtained from a ship;
(b) from which it should receive instructions concerning its own actions and the particulars to be transmitted to the ship,
3. INVITES Governments of coastal States that have established a MAS to forward to the Organization the details (i.e., call numbers, call signs, etc.) of their MAS to enable the Organization to circulate such particulars, so that shipmasters and other persons or organizations concerned can contact it as necessary;
4. RECOMMENDS that Governments of coastal States, when establishing a MAS, take into account the guidelines set out in Annex 2 to the present resolution;
5. REQUESTS the Maritime Safety Committee and the Marine Environment Protection Committee to keep this resolution under review and amend it as appropriate.