• The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and the Comité Maritime International (CMI) launch an updated campaign ‘Promoting Maritime Treaty Ratification’, highlighting the international maritime Conventions which ICS and CMI believe are significantly important for governments to ratify as a matter of urgency.
• Due to a long-standing concern that governments are not ratifying important Conventions, ICS and CMI have updated their joint campaign brochure to highlight the importance of key Conventions and to assist in addressing this issue.
• For a global industry, comprehensively regulated by the UN International Maritime Organization (IMO) and other UN bodies, it is critical that the Conventions are widely ratified in order to ensure that the same regulations apply to all ships in international trade during all parts of their voyage. 

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and the Comité Maritime International (CMI) launch an updated campaign for ‘Promoting Maritime Treaty Ratification’. There is a long-standing concern that many governments are not ratifying important international conventions despite their adoption at IMO and other regulatory fora. To assist in addressing this issue ICS and CMI have jointly updated their campaign to encourage and support governments to ratify these conventions. The campaign highlights the international maritime Conventions which ICS and CMI believe are significantly important for governments to ratify as a matter of urgency.

The international maritime Conventions strongly encouraged to be ratified by governments by ICS and CMI as an urgent priority are the IMO Nairobi Convention on the Removal of Wrecks (Nairobi WRC), 2007, IMO 2010 Protocol to the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea (HNS), 1996, the IMO Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (Hong Kong), 2009, and the United Nations Convention on the International Effects of Judicial Sales of Ships, 2023 (the Beijing Convention).

The ongoing ICS/CMI campaign to promote treaty ratification has the full support of IMO which is increasingly focused on the need to further improve the effective implementation of its existing maritime instruments, in addition to the organisation’s vital rule-making function.

Kiran Khosla, Principal Director (Legal) at the International Chamber of Shipping, comments:

“As a global industry, comprehensively regulated by the UN International Maritime Organization (IMO) and other UN bodies, the need for international regulations to be ratified and implemented at national level, is crucial. The purpose of the campaign is for ICS and CMI members, which represent national shipowner associations and national maritime law associations respectively, to engage with their governments to urge them to ratify these conventions where they are not currently in force.”

“Our industry is dependent on a global regulatory system to operate efficiently and safely. Global standards must be uniformly applied and enforced worldwide to prevent significant challenges arising, including a patchwork of unilateral regulations and inferior levels of safety and environmental protection. It is fundamental that the same regulations are equally applied to all ships engaged in international trade, and that the same rules apply during the entire voyage. A global industry needs global regulations.” 

Ann Fenech, President of the CMI added:

“The CMI is delighted to join forces with the ICS and relaunch the ‘Promoting Maritime Treaty Ratification’ campaign. Today’s challenging international scene and geopolitical developments in which shipowners, charterers, cargo owners, financiers, flag administrations, and maritime players generally are navigating, make it all the more important, now more than ever before, that the maritime law and regulations in different jurisdictions provide legal certainty and uniformity. The CMI through its national maritime law associations, will continue to reach out to the decisionmakers within governments with a view to achieving these goals, which are the very raison d’être of the CMI.”

The Promoting Maritime Treaty Ratification campaign sets out what each individual Convention is, why it is important and any recent developments. The new campaign also highlights instruments and regulations which would benefit from wider ratification including IMO Convention on Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water (BWM), 2004, and IMO Protocol of 1997 to MARPOL (Annex VI – Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships).

Promoting-Maritime-Treaty-Ratification_The-ICS-and-CMI-Campaign-2025