Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Construction (SDC), 2nd Session, 16-20 February 2015 (opening address)

(16-20 February 2015)

Good morning distinguished delegates, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome you all to the second session of the SDC Sub-Committee. 

The incidents over the New Year holiday season involving the vessels, Norman Atlantic and Blue Sky M, have reminded us once again how perilous a voyage at sea could be. In my message delivered on New Year's Day, I expressed my sincere condolences to all those caught up in these incidents. I also expressed my sincere appreciation to all involved in the rescue operations, notably the Italian and Greek authorities. 

2014 will be remembered as another year of very serious maritime casualties involving passenger ships, not at least the tragedy of the Sewol and the fire aboard the Norman Atlantic. IMO must take action to analyse the findings of the investigation reports into these serious maritime accidents and take any appropriate action to improve the safety standards of passenger ships. In this context, I have urged IMO Member Governments to review the current level of safety standards of passenger ships at the Maritime Safety Committee in June and discuss how we could strengthen our safety system and prevent such very serious maritime accidents involving passenger ships in future. I have urged the authorities of Italy and Greece to accelerate the process of casualty investigation and submit their findings to IMO as soon as possible.

On the issue of maritime migrants, such as those on board the Blue Sky M, the international community must take action now to address the people-smugglers behind this sort of migration and consider ways to prevent similar incidents of sending hundreds of migrants on unlawful and unregulated sea passages. As I declared at the high-level dialogue organized by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in December last year, I am convening an inter-agency meeting at IMO Headquarters on 4 and 5 March to address smugglers behind migrants and consider effective measures to prevent migrants embarking on unlawful and unregulated dangerous sea passages.

This reflects my statement released on the IMO website on New Year's Day, this year.

Regarding maritime migrants, we have seen another humanitarian tragedy very recently in the Mediterranean. At least 300 people, who were trying to reach Europe from Libya, drowned a week ago. Yesterday, the number of migrants crossing over the sea was in the order of three thousand. I appreciate the serious efforts of the Italian coastguard and the navy that rescued, reportedly, more than two thousand migrants.

Last year alone, more than 200,000 migrants were rescued at sea in the Mediterranean. At least 3000 people lost their lives. More than 600 merchant ships have been diverted rescuing migrants and the current rescue capacity is clearly over-stretched.

I have advocated that we should take concerted action and the international community should address the issue of smugglers organizing illegal and unregulated sea passage placing hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, causing thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean.

We do not seek to prevent migration. People have the human right to migrate, but it is time to consider how we could stop the illegal, unregulated dangerous passages arranged by people smugglers. We will maintain the humanitarian tradition of acting to rescue people in distress. We shall maintain this important and well established humanitarian principle at sea. We should also strengthen rescue capacity and the system of persons rescued at sea established under SOLAS and SAR Convention.  

But, we should also begin serious consideration as to how we could stop the unregulated, unsafe and dangerous passages of migrants over the Mediterranean Sea.

I am inviting IOM (International Organization for Migration), UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), Interpol and other UN Agencies and Offices to the inter-agency meeting at top-level to discuss these issues and I hope that Member Governments and the shipping industry organizations will also participate in the open dialogue with UN Agencies arranged for the afternoon of 4 March.

On the issue of passenger ship safety and, in particular the Norman Atlantic, in my discussion with the Italian Transport Minister, Mr. Maurizio Lupi, last week, I emphasized the importance of finding causes of the accidents. 

In the history of more than half a century of intensive efforts at IMO, this Organization has generated a large number of safety regulations dealing with passenger ships. Design, construction, fire protection, lifesaving appliances, operation, navigation, safety management, survey and certification and so on, and we have established an impressive number of international regulations and standards. Still, accidents do happen. Something must have gone wrong for each accident, including the Costa Concordia and the Norman Atlantic, otherwise, these would have not happened.

We must figure out what went wrong and we must take action to improve our system to avoid similar accidents in future. In this context, provision of key information on findings of casualty investigation is crucial for IMO and I asked Minister Lupi to provide such information and proposals for improvements for discussion at the forthcoming MSC in June. The Minister was positive in our discussion and I appreciate it very much.

Now, turning to the main issues on the agenda of this Sub-Committee.

There are 19 substantive items covering intact stability, damage stability, damage control, amendments to SOLAS, Tonnage Convention related issues, FRP as structural material, evacuation analysis, means of escape, wing-in-ground and interpretations.

The scope and objectives of discussions on those issues are well defined and I am sure that you have a clear idea of targets of this session and therefore I will not embark on making my comments on how these issues should be addressed.

But I have only one point to make at this session - that is my expectation over your Sub-Committee's role and responsibilities in the process of consideration on the issue of survivability or vulnerability of large passenger ship highlighted in the wake of the Costa Concordia accident.

Immediately after the accident in January 2012, I stated, at my very first public speech as Secretary-General, that IMO should seriously consider necessary measures based on casualty investigation findings. I requested the Italian authorities to carry out the casualty investigation and submit the findings to IMO as soon as possible.

The process was complex and complicated and because the criminal investigation must progress in parallel with the safety investigation under the provisions of SOLAS, it took considerable length of time and IMO only received the report last year. 

MSC has, nevertheless, made serious efforts to discuss potential measures for safety improvements over the last two years and a half, and MSC held intensive discussions with its passenger ship working group at five regular sessions. 

The discussion at the last MSC in November 2014 was an important one. They agreed with the way ahead for the important discussion on ship vulnerability against hull damages. The SDC Sub-Committee was entrusted to work on technical issues surrounding this very important issue in the field of safety of passenger ships.

We all know last week that the Italian Court finally sentenced the ship master and the proceedings of the criminal investigation have now reached an outcome.

But, at IMO, we have not yet concluded our process of learning lessons from this major casualty. I would like to emphasize this point. We have not yet concluded our equally important and independent process in the international community.

At IMO, we have conducted serious debates on what action we should be compelled to take based on the casualty investigation report submitted last year and we have made some progress in our consideration but we have not yet come to the conclusion on the issue surrounding the survivability of passenger ships after damage. This task must be accomplished. This task can only be accomplished by IMO.

Responsibility of this Sub-Committee is paramount. Stakes are high. I just want to highlight the importance of your work this week in dealing with the issues of increasing the required subdivision index R in the damage stability regulations and the damage control in the context of the Costa Concordia casualty investigation report.

According to our statistics, 799 lives lost or missing were recorded last year alone. The annual figure of number of deaths due to maritime accidents is persistently around 1000. I have proposed to the IMO Membership to reduce the annual number of lost lives by half, aiming at 500. I maintain this proposal. 

According to other statistics, from 2004 to 2014, 4784 lives were lost in the passenger ship industry alone.

Distinguished delegates, here at IMO, we need to work for the safety of passengers and crew as the primary objective. Safety is the most important objective of our work. If we fail to do this most important work at IMO, there is no organization, nobody in this world can ensure safety of life at sea. Millions of passengers and seafarers depend on your work and your professional judgement. 

The purpose of this sub-committee is not just refinement and advancement in naval architecture and damage calculation theory in academics or to identify practicability of any change to ship design of the past and present in order to improve the safety level. The purpose of IMO is to improve the safety and the value of this technical body which is paramount and the work of this sub-committee has a humanitarian dimension to ensure the safety of millions of people.

I hope that you agree with me and work always keeping our principal objectives to improve our safety systems. 

Before concluding, I would like to draw your attention to another important issue of security.  I am sure you are aware of the incidents in Copenhagen. Taking into account the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and the tightened security level of this country, I have requested to tighten security measures at IMO, such as increasing levels of patrol and requested the security team to be more vigilant.

The threat to the UN in this country is still minimal, I should emphasize that. Nevertheless, I would request delegates to be aware of the security level and general security measures and stay vigilant.

With that, before passing over to you, Madam Chairman, as usual, we will have a reception this evening in the delegates’ lounge and you are all invited. A this reception, I would like to speak to you again today and for this time on one specific project we are considering to launch at IMO, that is the "IMO Ambassador scheme for the promotion of seafaring and maritime professions", which I mentioned at my regular informal briefing to IMO Membership. There has been some progress made with this project and I would like to brief you on this. Your participation would be highly appreciated.

Thank you.

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