Pushing for fishing vessel safety

Fishing is one of the most hazardous professions in the world with a large number of occupational fatalities every year. Despite its perilous nature, an internationally binding regime for the safety of fishing vessels and their crew does not exist – unlike for seafarers, who benefit from the safety provisions established by enforceable international treaties, such as the 1974 SOLAS Convention. Such treaties do not apply to fishing vessels, explicitly excluding them.

Regrettably, the key international treaty applicable to commercial fishing vessels, the 2012 Cape Town Agreement, has not yet entered into force. There are therefore no globally mandatory requirements for the design, construction and equipment of fishing vessels, including life-saving, fire protection and radio-communications equipment to be carried on board.

The journey to bringing a mandatory regulatory framework for fishing vessels into force began some four decades ago with the adoption of the Torremolinos International Convention for the Safety of Fishing Vessels in 1977. Due mainly to the complexity of its implementation, the Convention failed to attract the number of ratifications necessary for it to enter into force; and the same happened in 1993 when the Torremolinos Protocol relating to the Convention was adopted.

The 2012 Cape Town Agreement, brought about after intensive discussions over a five-year period, presents the latest regulatory attempt to establish a mandatory regime for the safety of fishing vessels. The Agreement provides standards for the design, construction and equipment of fishing vessels and includes regulations designed to protect the safety of crews and observers, aiming at providing a level playing field for the industry.

The 2012 Cape Town Agreement principally applies to fishing vessels of 24 meters in length and over, while providing flexibility for flag States to exempt certain vessels, as well as to ratify the Agreement first and implement certain provisions on a gradual basis (in phases) later on.

It complements the 2007 International Labour Organization (ILO) Work in Fishing Convention and the 2009 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Port State Measures Agreement, as well as IMO’s International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Fishing Vessel Personnel (STCW-F), 1995.

The 2012 Cape Town Agreement replaces the 1977 Torremolinos Convention

and the 1993 Protocol with updated provisions that address previously encountered difficulties and pave the way for facilitating the entry into force. For this to happen, the Agreement needs to be ratified by 22 States with an aggregate number of 3,600 fishing vessels operating on the high seas. The current number of ratifications stands at 16 States with around 1,500 eligible fishing vessels.

The last few years show an accelerated trend towards ratification, providing hope for its entry into force in the not-too-distant future. This has been driven by IMO efforts to actively promote the Agreement, including the Torremolinos Ministerial Conference on Fishing Vessel Safety and Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing, in October 2019, attended by some 120 States, 70 ministeriallevel representatives, 30 international organisations and more than 500 delegates.

During the Conference, the Torremolinos Declaration was adopted and signed by 48 States (since risen to 51 States), publicly indicating their determination to ratify the Agreement by 11 October 2022 – the 10th anniversary of its adoption – to enable its entry into force one year later. Since the 2019 Conference, five more States have ratified the Agreement with several others currently in the process of completing the ratification process.

When the 2012 Cape Town Agreement eventually enters into force, it will improve the safety of life at sea for hundreds of thousands of fishers worldwide and will also be a key tool in combating IUU fishing, as well as supporting the sustainable development of an industry that feeds millions of people. It will also allow for the establishment of a port State mechanism to monitor IUU fishing activities, which in turn will protect markets from being flooded with illegally caught fish, avoid depletion of world fish stocks, protect fishers from human rights abuse and provide the basis for tackling abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear.

IMO, in cooperation with other UN organizations, notably FAO and ILO, and non-governmental organizations, in particular the Pew Charitable Trusts, has recently been organizing a series of regional webinars to further promote the ratification and implementation of the Agreement, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders from transport and fisheries agencies.

IMO has launched a new easy guide to the Cape Town Agreement (https://bit. ly/3uAzmRz).

For more information, visit https://

www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Safety/Pages/

Fishing%20Vessels-Default.aspx.

Contact: Cagri Kucukyildiz on

fvs@imo.org

Regional webinars on the Ratification and Implementation of the 2012 Cape Town Agreement

The objective of the webinar series is to maintain the momentum of the 2019 Torremolinos Ministerial Conference. By sharing lessons learned by States that have already ratified the Agreement, or are currently in the process of doing so, the webinars help to identify any barriers that hinder progress towards the widespread acceptance and effective implementation of the Agreement. • North Africa and Middle East (April 2021) • Africa Region (February 2021) • Latin America and Caribbean region (November 2020) • Europe and Western Asia (June 2021) • Pacific (July 2021) • Asia (October 2021)