the International Chamber of Shipping has updated the lines guides on the important operations of rescue in sea



Which answer to the continuous one and intensified flow of refugees and migrants who cross from south to north the Mediterranean, the shipowning association International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has updated own lines guides on the important operations of rescue in sea. That of features of an activity of great engagement and unprecedented for the shipowning field in response to the humanitarian emergency it evidences it the number of participations of assistance to floating cargos of migrants who are operated by the mercantile ships and their crews in the Mediterranean, in the course of which they are saved beyond 50.000 people.

The new lines guide, than - it has specified ICS - they are applicable also to other regions, between which the Asian south-east, where the ships can they involved in operations in order to help a great number of migrants or refugees, they constitute an update of those originally produced from the International Chamber of Shipping at the end of 2014 and take in consideration remarkable the recent acquired experience from the societies of navigation and their crews. Moreover the new lines guide are time supported from an immense formation of organizations of the marine industry, between which European Community Shipowners' Associations (DECOY), Asian Shipowners' Forum (ASF), International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF), Intercargo, Intertanko, IPTA and InterManager.

The ICS has specified that an important aspect of the new lines guides is the ulterior attention turns to guarantee that the helped people are drawn in salvo on board of the commercial ships assuring meanwhile also the safeguard, the safety and the well-being of the marine ones that carry out such operations of aid, than often involve a remarkable degree of risk. Moreover the new guide is widened in order to include multilingual communications that can be used from the ships when the coming people from Africa and the Middle East are drawn in salvo.

The ICS has evidenced that the drafters of the new guide have rimarcato that the document does not have in some way to be considered as the "better practical than management", as for example those which the field has developed in order to face the threat of piracy somali, and that the shipowners must be free to consider less or than such lines guide if they consider it in the context of their operations and business procedures opportune.

Moreover the ICS and the associations of the shipping that they support this initiative have emphasized that the review of the lines guides does not have in some way to suggest that the societies of navigation or their crews as expected accept the failure of the governments in supplying by their adequate States measures of rescue from the international law. "The fact that these lines guides of the field, that they are recognized by organisms which the IMO and the UNHCR - the general secretary of the ICS has confirmed, Peter Hinchliffe - are unfortunately necessary, it does not mean that the constant rerun to the mercantile ships in order to carry out a role that is of precipua responsibility of the governments is acceptable and tantomeno sustainable. The field - it has added Hinchliffe - has made and will continue to make pressures on the governments so that they make more in order to fulfill to their obligations during this crisis".