Tough Canadian Arctic Shipping Rules Elicit Whining From Biggest Intl. Shipping Association

[hatrack]

The federal government's tough new rules regulating Arctic shipping have drawn fire from the largest international association of maritime cargo carriers, which describes the mandatory registration system introduced by Canada on July 1 as "drastic" and a potential threat to the long-standing "right to innocent passage" on the world's oceans.

BIMCO, the Denmark-based Baltic and International Maritime Council, includes firms accounting for 65 per cent of the world's cargo. The organization says Canada ignored its request earlier this year to have the proposed new Arctic regulatory regime vetted first by a committee of the International Maritime Organization, which oversees global shipping traffic. "There will be compliance, and we are very much in favour of everybody contributing to a very safe environment in these Arctic waters," said Michael Lund, BIMCO's chief international affairs officery.

But he added that the new Canadian regime appears to conflict with some key principles that have guided international shipping in the past and that "we would have liked to see this go to the IMO" before Transport Canada implemented the new rules this month. "Mandatory ship reporting systems represent an administrative burden to the ship's crew that can have safety implications," BIMCO argued in a submission on the new rules sent to Canadian officials in February.

Noting that an expansion of the geographical area covered by the new regulations "appears drastic," BIMCO also raised concerns that the blocking of any vessel deemed to be violating the rules "could be seen as effectively interfering with the right to innocent passage for ships as ensured by UNCLOS," the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

EDIT

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Tough%20Arctic%20shipping%20rules%20rankle%20cargo%20carriers/3262838/story.html