On the date of 8 September 2016, there was finally a moment, for which since 2004 have been waiting all those involved in the work of the International Convention for the Proceedings of the Ballast Water Management (International Conventions for the Control and Management of Ship’s Ballast Water and Sediments, 2004 known as Ballast Water Management Convention, BWM Convention). On that day the representative of Finland to the IMO - Ms Päivi Luostarinen and General Secretary of the IMO - Mr. Kitack Lim met in order to submit ratification document on behalf of the state of Finland. In this moment- with the result of 35.1441% - the conventional ratification threshold has been exceeded and from that moment, a twelve-month waiting period began, for the Convention to enter into force.
12 months to entry the Convention into force is indeed quite a lot of time, but the activities related to the new responsibilities from 8 September 2017, the owners should plan now already.
Owners' preparations for entry of the Convention into force, which in recent years have repeatedly grew in intensity will, in fact, in 2016 come in the final stages of completion and we should treat it with due seriousness, as IMO will treat it as its flagship project, and as individual Member States have already started to treat it at the stage of implementation and verification of the fulfilment of statutory duties.
- Piotr Jędrusiak