International Maritime Organization (IMO)

• The International Maritime Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations which is responsible for measures to improve the safety and security of international shipping and to prevent pollution from ships.
• It is also involved in legal matters, including liability and compensation issues and the facilitation of international maritime traffic.
• It was established by means of a Convention adopted under the auspices of the United Nations in Geneva on 17 March 1948 and met for the first time in January 1959.
• The IMO slogan sums up its objectives: Safe, secure and efficient shipping on clean oceans.
• When IMO first began operations its chief concern was to develop international treaties and other legislation concerning safety and marine pollution prevention.
• By the late 1970s, however, this work had been largely completed, though a number of important instruments were adopted in more recent years.
• IMO is now concentrating on keeping legislation up to date and ensuring that it is ratified by as many countries as possible. This has been so successful that many Conventions now apply to more than 98% of world merchant shipping tonnage.
• Currently the emphasis is on trying to ensure that these conventions and other treaties are properly implemented by the countries that have accepted them.​

Membership

• It currently has 174 Member States.
• IMO’s governing body is the Assembly which is made up of all the Member States and meets normally once every two years.
• Non-governmental international organizations that have the capability to make a substantial contribution to the work of IMO may be granted consultative status by the Council with the approval of the Assembly.

How does it work?

• The Council, of 40 Member States elected by the Assembly, acts as governing body in between Assembly sessions. It prepares the budget and work programme for the Assembly.
• The main technical work is carried out by the Maritime Safety, Marine Environment Protection, Legal, Technical Co-operation and Facilitation Committees and a number of sub-committees.
• It adopts the budget for the next biennium together with technical resolutions and recommendations prepared by subsidiary bodies during the previous two years.
• The Council is the executive organ of IMO and is responsible, under the Assembly, for supervising the work of the organisation. Between sessions of the Assembly, the Council performs the functions of the Assembly, except that of making recommendations to governments on maritime safety and pollution prevention.
• The Assembly normally meets once every two years in regular session. It is responsible for approving the work programme, voting the budget and determining the financial arrangements of the Organisation. It also elects the Organisation’s 40-member council at these meetings for the next two-year period.

India and IMO

• India has been re-elected to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Council after elections were held at its Assembly in London for the 2022-23 biennium.
  
  
• India’s election falls under the Category of 10 states with “the largest interest in international seaborne trade”, alongside Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).