WELCOME

The U.S. Industrial College of the Armed Forces

Minerva AlfonsoUK Regional Manager

London, 3 May 2007

International Association of Independent Tanker Owners

Membership:

250 + members representing > 80% of the independent oil tanker fleet and > 85% of the chemical carrier fleet, with strict membership criteria

300 + associate members in oil and chemical tanker related businesses

Public Perception of Shipping

– Negative perception by the general public and regulators

– Partly due to the media only focusing on shipping incidents and the shortcomings of the industry

– But also historically, the tanker industry itself has tolerated inadequate standards

Source: ITOPF. Number of spills above 700 tonnes.

Record of Oil Spills

Record of Oil Spills

• 1970 – 1980: major oil spills

• The industry has paid a high price for this laissez-faire attitude

• Understandably, these major incidents generated public outcry

• Which resulted in a welter of new regulations covering tanker safety and pollution prevention

• Unfortunately, even if the industry has quietly made advances, the negative perception remained

Major Challenges

• Proliferation of unilateral regulations

• Global regulation for a global industry,

adopted and implemented uniformly

• National and regional regulations threaten the supremacy of the International Maritime Organization. (IMO)

Major Challenges

Unilateral regulations - in the U.S.

• Individual states vs federal regulations

• INTERTANKO U.S. Supreme Court victory against the State of Washington in March 2000, a significant milestone

INTERTANKO had argued to the Supreme Court that the individual states in the US had no Constitutional right to regulate matters of vessel design, construction, alteration, repair, maintenance, operation, equipment, personnel qualifications and manning.

Unanimous 9-0 decision of the Supreme Court Justices in favour of the INTERTANKO position

Commitment to Continuous Improvement

Primary Goal

Lead the continuous improvement of the Tanker Industry’s performance in striving

to achieve the goals of:

Zero fatalities

Zero pollution

Zero detentions

Poseidon Challenge: An invitation to- commit to continuous improvement- commit to working with all partners

Poseidon Challenge

• Careful analysis of tanker casualties showed that there were always many more than one factor contributing to each particular accident.

• This is best illustrated the Responsibility Chain, which depicts how other responsible parties can help to raise the safety standards and contribute to a minimisation of the extent and the number of oil spills.

• INTERTANKO works closely with the US coast guard and in April 1998, INTERTANKO signed a partnership agreement with them.

ISSUE OF PIRACY AND

ARMED ROBBERY

Piracy trends: 1995-2006

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Killed

Injured

Kidnap/Ransom

Taken Hostage

Assaulted

Threatened

Missing

Source: International Maritime Bureau (IMB)

Reasons for the downward trend

a) increase in the level of awareness of the crew when transiting hot spots areas and

b) due to increased international pressure, the number of patrols have increased in previous hotspots areas like Indonesia and Malaysia

• Although there is a downward trend in the number of attacks, the nature of attacks had become more severe.

• 1 May 2007: Chevron’s Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) facility was boarded by militants, and six expatriate employees were kidnapped earlier today. The nationalities of the hostages are 4 Italians, 1 Croatian and 1 American

Types of violence to crew by location: 2006

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Crew Killed CrewInjured

Kidnapped TakenHostage

CrewThreatened

CrewAssaulted

Rest of theWorld

Africa

Americas

Indian Sub-Continent

Far East

S E Asia

Source: International Maritime Bureau (IMB)

Top 9 hot spots representing 75% of total reported incidents in 2006.

Indonesia (50)

Bangladesh (47)

Nigeria (12)

Malacca Straits (11)

Somalia (10)

Malaysia (10)

Tanzania (9)

Peru (9)

Gulf of Aden / Red Sea (10)

Source: International Maritime Bureau (IMB)

International Treaties

Geneva Convention on the High Seas of 1958

and repeated in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 Piracy (UNCLOS)

Art 105, piracy is considered an international crime and endow all States with the right to take enforcement measures for the suppression of piracy, thus restricting the flag state principle.

UNCLOS Article 101 Definition of piracy

In order to be considered an act of piracy the following 5 elements should be fulfilled:

1. Illegal act of violence such as robbery, murder, assault, rape

2. Motivated by private gains

3. Committed by persons on board a private ship

4. Directed against another vessel

5. High seas or outside any States jurisdictions

UNCLOS Limitations

• 2 ships rule – attacks by crews / stowaways not included

• Motivated by private gains – political terrorist type attacks not covered

• Most attacks happen in territorial waters; therefore acts are not punishable under Art 105.

• Article 111. Right of Hot Pursuit.

Jurisdiction in the Malacca and Singapore Straits

SUA Convention

• Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro 7 Oct 1985

• 4 armed stowaways hijacked the ship and killed one American passenger (2 ships rule not fulfilled under UNCLOS)

• In Egyptian waters (UNCLOS Art. 101 piracy definition only applicable to high seas attack)

• Led to the promulgation of the SUA Convention (Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation) or more commonly known as the Rome Convention convention in order fill the gaps left by UNCLOS.

Limitations of the SUA Convention

• Only applicable within the jurisdiction of States party to it

• the decision by the parties to enforce the Rome Convention is ultimately discretionary

• The Convention does not provide for any sanctions against parties who fail to fulfil their treaty obligations

CONCLUSIONS

INTERTANKO is deeply concerned over the trend of piracy in the past several years as it constitutes an extremely grave threat to the lives of the crews and the safe operation of ships.

International agreements (i.e. UNCLOS and 1988 SUA Convention) that deal with piracy and other acts of maritime violence seem inadequate as a legal basis to protect our crews and ships from such acts.

One of the major deficiencies of the international rules under the Geneva Convention and UNCLOS is their narrow definition of piracy.

CONCLUSIONS

The lack of ratification of the SUA Convention by countries as well as the lack of proper implementation of these treaties by some party states, mean that the agreement is virtually inapplicable in some areas, and some attacks may go unpunished.

I hope my presentation highlighted the vulnerability of our seafarers to the hostile acts of opportunistic pirates. It is really up to us working ashore to support them.

THANK YOU

www.intertanko.com

www.themaritimefoundation.com

www.shippingfacts.com