USA

Guards on ships

Only one national delegation expressed support for the proposal regarding the costs of port facility security measures. The BIMCO/ICS proposal originated from reports describing steps taken at U.S. ports, in which the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had instructed the U.S. Coast Guard to ensure that guards were placed on specific ships. The INS had issued these instructions to the USCG based on the nationalities of crew employed on the ships.

Up until recently, the USCG had assigned its own "Sea Marshals" to police such vessels. The Sea Marshals were well-trained Coast Guard personnel and the costs were covered by the USCG. However, earlier this year the Sea Marshals were phased out and replaced by private security guards assigned to ships, the costs of which are being passed to the ship owners. Cases have been reported showing that such costs can range from a few hundred dollars to amounts exceeding USD 75,000.00 per call.

The BIMCO/ICS proposal sought to ensure that such costs would be covered by the respective port facility operating budgets on the basis that these guards were not employed to protect the ship, but rather their task was to protect the port facility. As the beneficiary of this service, the port facility should bear the related costs - not the shipowners, just as shipowners do not invoice port facilities for the costs incurred in improving security arrangements aimed at protecting the ship. Rather than passing such costs on to individual ships, it would be preferable to see the costs covered either by government funding, port tariff adjustments, or a combination of the two.

The delegations opposing the proposal shared the view that contracting governments to the SOLAS convention should have a free hand to decide how certain measures are financed, and that their opinions should not be constrained by stipulations in SOLAS or the ISPS Code, neither in the mandatory section of the Code nor the recommendatory section.

The proposal to ensure that armed guards are adequately trained received a more favourable response from the ISWG. Even though the proposed text was not placed in the mandatory section of the ISPS Code, the concept will be included in the recommendatory section, which is already being referred to by some close to this work as "quasi-mandatory".

There were several other multi-sponsored proposals made by industry groups included BIMCO and the ICS as joined by International Parcel Tanker Association (IPTA), INTERTANKO, the Society of International Gas Tanker & Terminal Operators (SIGTTO), the Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF), and the International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL).