Tacit acceptance: how a shipping safety amendment binds governments that never voted for it

Background

IMO keeps more than 50 international conventions and agreements up to date. In the older conventions an amendment needed acceptance by a percentage of the Contracting States, usually two thirds, which held it up for years. A new amendment procedure was devised in IMO to cure that delay. Under tacit acceptance an amendment enters into force on a set date unless objections arrive from a specified number of Parties before then. An amendment to most of the Annexes of the SOLAS convention counts as accepted two years after it reaches the Contracting Governments in question. A rejection works only where more than one third of Contracting Governments object, or where the objectors own not less than 50 per cent of the gross merchant tonnage of the world. A change to that two-year period rests with the Maritime Safety Committee, subject to a minimum limit of one year. Amendments on this route enter into force within 18 to 24 months instead of waiting for enough acceptances.