Having noted comments from members that it is often difficult to know the status of a cargo offered for shipment that does not appear either in the IBC Code or the MEPC.2/Circ, IPTA submitted a paper to the eleventh session of the IMO's BLG Sub-Committee pointing out that the fact that the MEPC.2/Circular is only updated once a year means that on occasions there can be a gap of several months between the concluding of a Tripartite Agreement and its appearance in the MEPC.2/Circular. The paper proposed that details of recently concluded tripartite agreements should be made available on the IMO website in the period before they are published in the MEPC.2/Circ.
The submission was
largely supported by both member states and other industry NGO’s, although
concern was expressed that
details of carriage requirements sometimes change in the period before an
agreement is published in the MEPC.2/Circ., and that keeping a detailed list
updated on the internet could place a burden on the IMO Secretariat. It
was finally agreed that for agreements concluded under Lists 1, 3 and 4 of the
MEPC.2/Circ., in other words, pure products, mixtures with safety hazards and
mixtures with unassessed components, the name of the product, the submitting
country and the List number should be shown. This would mean that interested
parties would be able to ascertain that an agreement exists for a particular
product and contact the submitting state for further details. For pollutant only
mixtures under List 2 for which only a simplified tripartite is required, the
name of the product,
“Contains name”, n.o.s. entry number and producing country will be made
available.
Initially the information will be made available through the public domain on the IMO website, but the intention is for a new module to be added eventually to the GSIS (Global Shipping Information Service) database. We will advise members when the system becomes active.