International Maritime Organizations Strategic Directions

Running head: IMO STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS
International Maritime Organizations Strategic Directions
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1IMO STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS
Introduction:
The Shipping industry is observed to expand in a significant manner over the years
and the current market dynamics along with the significant business opportunities across the
globe is making it even bigger for the organizations. It is observed that the various modern
organizations are considering the maritime transportation with increased significance for the
bulk transfer of the products or the raw materials. Under such situation, the importance of the
shipping industry and the maritime transport is getting significantly increased. This makes
sure that the local and the international governing bodies are focusing on the imposition of
the strong and effective legislation in order to create such an environment where the business
conduction in the industry will be ethical and much easier (Hänninen, Banda and Kujala
2014). The paper is focused in specifying the role of the IMO in the regulatory development
and implementation. Apart from this, the paper provides significant information regarding the
issues that the organization is facing in the implementation of those regulations. Along with
that, the paper provides significant references of incidents for both the cases.
Overview of IMO:
International Maritime Organization was considered as the consultative organization
for the Inter-governmental maritime consultations in the past. The organization was founded
in the year 1948 and from 1982, it is considered as a specialised agency for regulating the
shipping of United Nations (Imo.org. 2018). The organization is having the United Nations
Economic and Social Council as the parent organization and is a result of the agreement at
the UN conference which took place in the year 1948 in Geneva (Imo.org. 2018). The
members of the organization were observed to meet for the first time in the year 1959 in
London, United Kingdom which is still the headquarter of the organization. However the
organization is able to form several legislations over the years and the expansion of the

2IMO STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS
organization included 174 member states along with three associate members (Imo.org.
2018).
MARPOL 73/78:
The importance of the IMO in the shipping industry is significant and that is visible
with the formation of the MARPOL. MARPOL is the International convention for the
prevention of pollution from ships formed in the year 1973 and then in the year 1978, it was
modified. The role of IMO in the minimization of the pollution of the oceans and seas from
the dumping of wastes and oil along with the air pollution due to the smoke, was notable with
the introduction of the MARPOL (Shi 2014). The concerned organization IMO, was observed
to attempt the elimination of the pollution created by the oil and other harmful substances.
The several legislation of MARPOL is significant in describing the effort of IMO in the
reduction of the spillage of the substances which have the potential to cause detrimental
impact on the quality of the water. MARPOL was observed to have six provisions in the form
of Annex 1 to Annex 6. The organization IMO was seen to be concerned with all aspects of
pollutions as it is seen that the Annex 1 is focused in the prevention from the oil and the oily
water, Annex 2 specifies the control of pollution causing from the noxious liquid, Annex 3
elaborates the pollution from the substances in packaged form. Apart from this, IMO is
observed to have significant concern for the pollution caused from the sewage from ships,
garbage of the ships along with the air pollution of the ships with the introduction of Annex
4, 5 and 6 respectively.
Role of the governments in the development of the regulatory frameworks:
The role of the IMO in the development of the regulatory framework is significantly
focused on the implementation and the planning for the legislations. The organization was
liable for the development of the regulatory framework for the shipping industry with a