Lex Portus (Feb 2018)
Ukraine’s activities in ensuring the implementation of international standards in the sphere of rescue at sea
Abstract
Despite the achievements of the international community in the field of navigation safety, ensuring traffic and operation of ships, statistics show that the level of accidents in the world's marine fleet is still very high. While the negative consequences of accidents of sea-going vessels are spreading both to its crew and passengers and to coastal countries. Each state is obliged to ensure that all necessary measures are taken to organize observations from shore and rescue people in distress at sea. The adoption of all necessary measures to best organize the search for people and ships in distress at sea and near its banks imposes on the state the obligation to establish a service for search and rescue at sea. Search and rescue at sea requires a whole range of activities such as: the organization of marine rescue coordination centers; the organization of cooperation in conducting search and rescue operations at sea; the development of plans for such operations; the organization of cooperation. An important role in ensuring the safety of navigation belongs to the International Maritime Organization, cooperation with relevant governmental and non-governmental international organizations. Within the framework of International Maritime Organization, a sufficiently developed system of international agreements has been created in which considerable attention is paid to the issues of ensuring the safety of navigation, but this problem continues to exist. Ukraine joins the International rescue convention of 1989 which was signed on April 28, 1989 in London within the framework of the International Maritime Organization. To this Convention, 64 countries have joined, 25 of which (Germany, France, Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, etc.) in accordance with Art. 30 of the Convention reserved the right not to apply the provisions of the Convention - in specific cases. The adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Ukraine's accession to the International Rescue Convention 1989” will contribute to the improvement of the current national legislation on maritime rescue operations and contribute to the maintenance of an appropriate level of safety of navigation, rescue of people in distress, ships, property and environmental protection.
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