Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on the need for the maritime labour convention.

Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on the need for the maritime labour convention. The main objective of The International Maritime Organization was to control and regulate international standards for shipping. Though the first maritime treaty was held in 19th century later in 1912 with the disaster of Titanic the need for an international treaty became unavoidable. Thus the first international safety of life at sea (SOLAS) convention, the most important treaty ever addressing maritime safety was spawned (Introduction to IMO). IMO first met in 1959 undertaking tasks such as developing and maintaining a complete regulatory framework for shipping. Further, it has widened its range of concerns toward safety, environmental concerns, legal affairs, technical cooperation, maritime security and efficiency of shipping. the organization, as its mission statement says “safe, secure and efficient shipping on the clean ocean”, takes special consideration to ensure that lives at sea are not at risk and the marine environment is not polluted by the shipping (Introduction to IMO).

Today any ship that is in distress anywhere in the world can be identified and helped by the IMO assisted by the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) that has become operational. This technology would automatically transmit the message even if the crew is unable to do this. On 1st July 1998, the International Safety Management Code entered in to force and became applicable to passenger ships, oil, and chemical tankers, bulk carriers, etc (Introduction to IMO).

Taking into consideration the changing global conditions and current issues IMO have initiated new undertakings. The International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code is one of the significant codes which came in to force 1st July 2004. The objective of this code is to raise an effective defense against smuggling, terrorism, piracy, stowaways, etc.&nbsp.