Three classes of Council seat and dues set by fleet tonnage: how IMO is built

Background

The International Maritime Organization, or IMO, is the specialized agency of the United Nations for shipping: its remit runs to safety at sea, to security, and to keeping ships from polluting. Its Assembly is the highest governing body and meets in regular session once every two years, while an elected Council runs the body between those sessions, except that recommendations to Governments on maritime safety and pollution prevention stay with the Assembly. Council seats come in three classes: ten States with the largest interest in providing international shipping services, ten with the largest interest in international seaborne trade, and twenty more with special interests in maritime transport or navigation, elected so that all major geographic areas of the world are represented. IMO has adopted amendments that would widen the Council to 52. Five main Committees carry the technical work, and the Maritime Safety Committee is described as the highest technical body of the Organization. Pollution from ships falls to the Marine Environment Protection Committee, and three others sit beside it. One is the Legal Committee; another handles technical cooperation; the last is the Facilitation Committee. The Legal Committee was set up to handle the questions thrown up by the Torrey Canyon disaster. A Secretariat of some 300 international personnel works from London, headed by the Secretary-General, Arsenio Dominguez. What each member pays is unlike the formula used elsewhere in the United Nations system: the amount turns mainly on the tonnage of its merchant fleet.