Workshop on the 2010 HNS Convention hosted by Canada

Transport Canada hosted a two-day Workshop on the 2010 HNS Convention on 17 and 18 March 2016 in Montreal. The workshop had a full programme which attracted speakers and participants from government and industry and covered many of the key areas pertinent to the entry into force of the Convention.
The Director, Mr José Maura and the Head of External Relations and Conference Department, Mr Thomas Liebert, attended on behalf of the IOPC Funds. Mr Maura presented under the session entitled ‘International Efforts to Bring the 2010 HNS Convention into Force’ and provided information on the work carried out by the 1992 Fund in that regard.
In particular, the 1992 Fund has been assisting the HNS Correspondence Group with part of its mandate relating to the development of tools to assist States in their promotion of the HNS Convention and Mr Liebert presented a draft outline of a presentation covering theoretical incident scenarios and other factors that could be used to encourage States’ ratification of the Convention. Mr Liebert also presented under a later session dedicated to HNS Reporting, where issues facing States in the implementation of the reporting requirements were discussed. A number of States also shared their experience in the development of their own legislation and reporting procedures.
The concluding session of the workshop focussed on the development of a draft resolution to be considered by the IMO Legal Committee in June 2016, including possibly setting out a target date for the Convention’s coming into force as part of an international coordinated effort towards ratification, which was a key message from the participants.
The workshop was moderated by the Coordinator of IMO’s HNS Correspondence Group, Mr François Marier, who will be submitting a document to the April 2016 session of the 1992 Fund Assembly, setting out some of the conclusions from the workshop.