Transparency International exhorts the International Maritime Organization to equip itself of a more rigorous system of governance



Transparency International (YOU), the international organization whose objective is to prevent and to contrast the corruption also through actions in order to raise awareness the public opinion, Maritime denunciation that the International Organization (IMO), the agency of the United Nations charged to promote the cooperation in matter of navigation between the adherent nations and to guarantee safety of navigation and the protection of the marine atmosphere, is an organism whose activity is put to risk from caused unsolved conflicts of interest from deficiencies in its governance.

In its study from the title "Maritime Governance at the International Organization: the houses for reform", that the next May and of which the organization will be published has anticipated the contents, Transparency International specific, in particular, than the interests of the private marine industry they could lead in undue interferences in the procedures of elaboration of the policies within the IMO. This, among other things - second YOU - could place to risk the ability to the agency of the United Nations of regulating the produced gas emissions effectively greenhouse from the shipping.

In the Transparency International document currency the aspects of the transparency, responsibility and integrity of the structure of governance of the IMO and denunciation that the journalists would complain not to be able to report freely on the reunions of the IMO and that the organizations not-for-profit represented near the IMO with advisory scopes could be expelled from the agency of the UN if, for example, they moved critical to the agency or riferissero on the opinions of the adherent Countries.

Transparency International evidences moreover that majority (52%) of world-wide the commercial fleet is recorded in sun five nations: Panama hat, Liberia, Marshall, Malta and Bahamas, many of which - YOU emphasizes - they are notes as tax havens for the ships, and that together - still evidences the organization - they contribute for 43.5% of the total financings to the agency poured from the 170 Member States of the IMO. These Countries - YOU observes - potentially have a weight exaggerated in the processes of definition of policies IMO, in particular when some mechanism of defense from undue infuences does not exist.

Moreover Transparency International finds that the governments are able to name as members of their delegations near the employee IMO of companies, included the navigation companies, and that these representatives have conditioned the acts of some delegations. These delegates of the private sector - accusation YOU - can relatively determine the position of their government to politics IMO and they are not subject to the norms on the conflict of interest neither to a conduct code.

If the study thwarts these aspects negatives, it brings to light also that however, also in absence of a complete access to the procedures of definition of the policies, the transparency on the administration of the IMO is elevated and that the information on the mandate, the powers and the rules of job of its assembly, the council and the commission are easy accessible. Moreover the specific relationship that the same agency of the UN is not responsible for the nominations of the delegations of the Member States.

Relatively to the initiatives on the control of the emissions produced from the shipping, the coordinator of the Climate Governance Integrity Program di Transparency International, Brice Böhmer, introducing the study, has remembered that "in 1997 to the IMO the task is assigned to limit and to reduce the emissions of the shipping in the within of Protocollo di Kyoto. However - he has added - he has quite had himself to arrive to 2016 so that the IMO could agree a schedule towards an initial strategy, previewed for 2018, and a review of the strategy only previewed in 2023. A structure of governance of the working organization very - it has found Böhmer - would have to be able to place decisive measures in existence, but the deficiencies of the governance evidenced from our search suggest that this is not happening to the IMO because the political decisions can be controlled excessive from privately-owned companies".

Transparency International therefore has exhorted the IMO to establish an own more solid system of governance, to engage itself in a transparent process of opened dialogue with stakeholder that they do not take part of the agency, included the civil societies and the industry, to improve the transparency, to guarantee that the decisional processes reflect the public interest and to apply to rigorous rules and measures on integrity.