T&T is cur­rent­ly re­view­ing the leg­isla­tive frame­work for the mar­itime in­dus­try through the prepa­ra­tion of the Ship­ping Bill, 2020.

This bill will seek to re­peal and re­place the Ship­ping Act, the Har­bours Act, the Droghers Act, and the Mo­tor Launch­es Act. The new leg­isla­tive frame­work will al­so amend the Port Au­thor­i­ty Act and the Coro­ners Act, said At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour.

He made the an­nounce­ment at the Caribbean Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion’s 53rd An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing, Con­fer­ence and Ex­hi­bi­tion which took place on Mon­day.

He al­so ac­knowl­edged the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT), a found­ing mem­ber of the Caribbean Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion (CSA), for the role that it plays in de­vel­op­ing the mar­itime sec­tor and in sen­si­tis­ing the pub­lic on is­sues faced by the sec­tor.

The con­fer­ence pro­vid­ed in­sights on the top­ic of self-reg­u­la­tion in the ship­ping in­dus­try, which the AG not­ed was time­ly, con­sid­er­ing that the Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly passed the Ar­bi­tra­tion Act, 2023, which was as­sent­ed to on Ju­ly 11, 2023.

Ar­mour said the Ship­ping Bill, 2020 seeks to pro­vide for mat­ters such as:

• The es­tab­lish­ment of a Mar­itime Au­thor­i­ty of T&T that would have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of ad­vis­ing and re­port­ing to the Gov­ern­ment on pol­i­cy rel­a­tive to mar­itime mat­ters and reg­u­lat­ing mar­itime ac­tiv­i­ties;

• The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and reg­is­tra­tion of sea­far­ers;

• The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and reg­is­tra­tion of ves­sels and off­shore in­stal­la­tions;

• Is­sues re­lat­ing to crew safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of life at sea; and

• Pro­vi­sion for the manda­to­ry util­i­sa­tion of ar­bi­tra­tion in com­pul­so­ry em­ploy­ment agree­ments for sea­far­ers to work on a T&T ship or off­shore in­stal­la­tion.

“A Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment has been es­tab­lished to con­sid­er and re­port on the Ship­ping Bill, 2020. As a key stake­hold­er, the SATT sub­mit­ted com­ments on this bill. It is my hope that the re­port of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee will be pre­sent­ed to al­low for the pre­sen­ta­tion of this bill in the Fourth Ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment,” Ar­mour said.

In terms of in­ter­na­tion­al treaties and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work, the main in­ter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry body for the ship­ping and mar­itime in­dus­try is the In­ter­na­tion­al Mar­itime Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IMO), which is a Unit­ed Na­tions agency that sets stan­dards based on best prac­tices for var­i­ous as­pects of the in­dus­try such as safe­ty, train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of per­son­nel, labour, pol­lu­tion and oth­er en­vi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions.

Ar­mour not­ed that the ma­jor­i­ty of this coun­try’s Cari­com coun­ter­parts are mem­bers of the IMO and have adopt­ed var­i­ous treaties of para­mount im­por­tance to the ship­ping in­dus­try.

T&T, in par­tic­u­lar, he added, has adopt­ed the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion for the Safe­ty of Life at Sea, 1974, more com­mon­ly known as the SO­LAS Con­ven­tion, and the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion on Stan­dards of Train­ing, Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and Watch­keep­ing for Sea­far­ers, 1978, which is al­so known as the STCW Con­ven­tion.

“When seek­ing to har­monise in­ter­na­tion­al law with do­mes­tic law, at­ten­tion is al­ways paid to ar­eas where there can be fur­ther ex­pan­sion of reg­u­la­tions to ap­pro­pri­ate­ly fit in­di­vid­ual needs,” Ar­mour ex­plained.

Em­pha­sis­ing that self-reg­u­la­tion can be a mech­a­nism through which there can be pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment to ad­dress and con­front in­dus­try chal­lenges, the AG added that the in­te­gra­tion of re­gion­al economies at­tracts the con­cept of self-reg­u­la­tion in the ship­ping in­dus­try.

He added that self-reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards can en­gen­der:

• In­creased mar­itime safe­ty pre­cau­tions and re­quire­ments;

• Ex­pand­ed stan­dards of com­pe­tence;

• Aug­ment­ed ef­fi­cien­cy of mem­bers of the in­dus­try by fa­cil­i­tat­ing in­ter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween com­pa­nies;

• Faster, more adapt­able and less oner­ous adop­tion and en­force­ment of stan­dards when com­pared to gov­ern­men­tal reg­u­la­tions;

• Op­por­tu­ni­ties for ac­cred­it­ed and in­dus­try ac­cept­ed train­ing for stake­hold­ers;

• En­hanced mech­a­nisms to re­duce mar­itime pol­lu­tion; and

• So­lu­tions to in­dus­try spe­cif­ic pro­ce­dures that do not re­quire the in­ter­ven­tion of the gov­ern­ment such as in the re­cent COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, where, as ex­am­ples SATT en­sured that a call was made for full com­pli­ance with shut­down pro­ce­dures in T&T; and the Ship­ping As­so­ci­a­tion of Ja­maica in­sti­tut­ed an in­spec­tion regime to au­dit each mem­ber com­pa­ny to en­sure com­pli­ance with gov­ern­ment guide­lines.

“Ship­ping or­gan­i­sa­tions con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the mar­itime in­dus­try and the pro­gres­sion of a self-reg­u­la­to­ry in­dus­try char­ter, can on­ly pos­i­tive­ly con­tribute to height­ened stan­dards that are glob­al­ly ac­cept­ed. A dri­ve to­wards self-reg­u­la­tion in the in­dus­try en­cour­ages mem­bers of the CSA to go be­yond the scope of the reg­u­la­tions im­ple­ment­ed by the State and adopt ad­di­tion­al mea­sures to en­sure com­pli­ance with best prac­tices in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” Ar­mour main­tained.