MARITIME SAFETY COMMITTEE
71st session
Agenda item 15
MSC 71/15/1
16 February 1999
Original: ENGLISH
PIRACY AND ARMED ROBBERY AGAINST SHIPS
Implementation of the anti-piracy project
Note by the Secretariat
SUMMARY
Executive summary: This document contains information consequential to that given in documents MSC 70/15/1 and Add.1 on the steps taken by the Secretariat in pursuance of the Committee's instructions (MSC 68/23, paragraphs 16.5 and 16.6) that action should be taken to prevent and suppress acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships
Action to be taken: Paragraph 5
Related documents: MSC 68/23 (paragraphs 16.5 and 16.6), MSC 69/16/2, MSC 70/15/1 and Add.1, MSC 71/15/2, MSC 71/15/3 and MSC 71/INF.4
1 The Committee, as its sixty-ninth session (MSC 69/22, paragraph 16.4), noted that, pursuant to its instruction at its sixty-eighth session, the Secretary-General had entered into consultations with the Ambassadors and High Commissioners in London of countries in whose waters piracy and armed robbery had most frequently been reported and that, as a result of these consultations, agreement had been reached for the Organization to send missions of experts to a selected number of countries to further discuss the implementation in those countries of the IMO guidelines for preventing and suppressing piracy and armed robbery against ships (MSC/Circs.622 and 623). The missions were to be followed by regional seminars and workshops intended to assist Governments and officials in the countries concerned to enhance their capability for combating such unlawful acts in their waters.
2 At its seventieth session, the Committee received a preliminary report on the October 1998 mission of experts to the South East Asia region as well as a preliminary report on the mission of experts to Brazil and on the regional seminar and workshop held in Brasilia in October 1998 for Latin American and Wider Caribbean countries. MSC 70 instructed the Secretariat to submit the reports on the above activities to the present session together with a report on the regional seminar and workshop the Secretariat was organizing to take place in Singapore in February 1999.
3 The report on the mission of experts to the South East Asia region is attached to document MSC 71/15/2 and those on the mission to Brazil and on the Brasilia regional and workshop are attached to document MSC 71/15/3. The report of the Singapore regional seminar and workshop is given in the annex to document MSC 71/INF.4.
4 The mission of experts and the regional seminar and workshop for West African countries is scheduled to take place during the second half of the current year; and those to Indian Ocean countries will take place in due course thereafter, subject to the availability of funds.
Action requested of the Committee
5 The Committee is invited to note the above information and comment as appropriate.
