HFW SUPPORTS NGO ON DEVELOPMENT OF GENEVA DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS AT SEA

Global, sector-focused law firm HFW has continued to support the development of a new Geneva Declaration designed to define and defend the human rights of the global maritime population and those crossing the world's oceans and seas.

HFW previously carried out a joint review of the Declaration on behalf of UK-based NGO Human Rights at Sea (HRAS), which produced the proposed international convention in 2022 following three years of research and drafting by a team of experts in public, international, humanitarian and refugee law.

The firm has now translated the Declaration into nine different languages – Ukrainian, Russian, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, and Spanish – to assist HRAS' efforts to secure the support of States around the world for submission to the UN Human Rights Council to formally adopt the Declaration.

With the war in Ukraine now entering its second year, HRAS is discreetly supporting in-conflict and post-conflict activities to obtain justice for victims of human rights abuses, in particular the coastal communities in The Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

HFW is incredibly proud to continue to assist HRAS on this vitally important issue. The Geneva Declaration is a major milestone in the fight to end human rights abuses at sea. We would encourage organisations around the world to support the Declaration in any way that they can, so that the lives of seafarers, who play such a crucial role to everyone's day-to-day lives, are protected by law.

Alex Kemp, Partner, HFW

We are incredibly grateful to HFW for its dedicated and ongoing support. The firm and has been with us since the beginning and has played a vital role throughout the development of the Declaration. These translations are essential in enabling wwand encouraging the use of the Declaration around the world, to help to obtain justice for victims of human rights abuses at sea.

David Hammond, CEO, HRAS

The Declaration targets human rights abuses stemming from piracy, criminal violence, breaches of maritime labour rights, seafarer abandonment, slavery, trafficking, child labour, and failures in equality and inclusion. It applies to seafarers, fishers, workers in offshore oil and gas, and the tourism industry and extends to passengers, scientists, state officials on naval and coast guard vessels, migrants and refugees, and people involved in unlawful activities.

The Declaration is structured around the understanding that the protection of human rights at sea rests on four fundamental principles:

• Human rights at sea are universal; they apply at sea, as they do on land

• All persons at sea, without any distinction, are entitled to their human rights

• There are no maritime specific reasons for denying human rights at sea

• All human rights established under both treaty and customary international law must be respected at sea

HFW is widely recognised as the world's leading shipping and maritime law firm, and has been serving clients in the industry for more than 140 years. The firm has over 200 specialist shipping lawyers and more than a dozen mariners across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, advising clients on the full range of dry shipping, admiralty and crisis management, and transactional matters.

DHL’s GoGreen Plus service drives carbon reduction in ocean and air freight shipments while using sustainable fuels

In the first year of the cooperation 6,500 tCO2e TtW of carbon emissions have been reduced in ocean and air freight transportation

Grundfos reduces the environmental impact for the transport of its products significantly

DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist of Deutsche Post DHL Group, has successfully implemented sustainable logistics solutions for its customer Grundfos. Since one year DHL supports the world’s largest pump manufacturer and water solutions provider to decarbonize ocean and air freight shipments by providing GoGreen Plus insetting solutions. Both companies share a sustainable vision and regard this partnership as an important milestone on their science-based path to carbon neutrality.

We are deeply committed to helping our customers reach their sustainability goals by reducing carbon emissions along the supply lanes. Working together with the world’s leading pump manufacturer Grundfos is a great pleasure for us, as we both share a common perspective regarding the need to achieve carbon neutrality through auditable and scalable carbon-cutting solutions. Our GoGreen Plus services helped Grundfos decarbonize their ocean and air freight routes and we look forward to continuing this strategic partnership.

Torben Pagh, Managing Director, DHL Global Forwarding Denmark

DHL Global Forwarding focuses on reducing Grundfos’ carbon emissions

in ocean freight transportation for both less-than-container-load (LCL) and full-container-load shipments (FCL) via its GoGreen Plus service. The LCL GoGreen Plus service comes even without any additional costs for customers. Last year, both companies also launched a pilot project which aimed to reduce carbon emissions in air freight shipments (AFR). Grundfos accessed DHL Global Forwarding’s AFR GoGreen Plus service which cuts emissions in air transportation by using Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF).

Grundfos produces more than 16 Mln pumps a year and ships more than 20.000 containers over the ocean every year. Grundfos always pioneered in water solutions to address the water and climate challenges in the world and improve quality of life for people. That is part of our core and DNA. A testimony of that DNA is that Grundfos is the first company in the water solution sector to receive the full validation from SBTI (Science Based Target Initiative) of our net-zero emission target by 2050. The use of alternative biofuels from DHL Global Forwarding as one of our global ocean partners allows us to decarbonize our Ocean transport port to port. At the same time together we stimulate the freight industry to invest in a sustainable future. An industry which is critical for our company Grundfos

Dirk van der Heijden, Senior Director Global Logistics, Grundfos

DHL’s GoGreen Plus service is based on the insetting approach where customers are offered various solutions for minimizing logistics-related emissions along the entire supply chain. DHL Global Forwarding’s GoGreen Plus solution is facilitating a sustainable fuel switch. Hereby carriers consume sustainable fuel on behalf of DHL. Subsequently the resulting Scope 3 emission reductions are passed on to DHL and will then be allocated to cargo owners. This allocation is linked to the transport profile to the GoGreen Plus shipments of the cargo owner.

Source: DHL GLOBAL FORWARDING