Law-Making of the International Maritime Organization in the Field of the Protection of Human Life at Sea: Achievements and Shortcomings

INTRODUCTION. Although States continue to play a major role in creating rules of international law, including norms on the protection of human life at sea, the mechanisms of international law-making in this special area have been evolving in recent decades. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) plays an increasingly important role in this process, acting not only based on its founding convention, but also in accordance with many other multilateral international treaties, the composition of the States parties to which is not the same.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. The article examines the application of the rules of universal international treaties to the protection of human life at sea, primarily the Convention on the Intergovernmental Maritime Organization of 1948, the Convention on the Protection of Human Life at Sea of 1974, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982. The methodological basis of the research consists of general theoretical methods, including formal logical deduction and induction, analysis and synthesis, as well as special methods of cognition of jurisprudence, such as historical-legal and comparative-legal.

RESEARCH RESULTS. The authors' analysis of the participation of Members-States of the International Maritime Organization in the development, implementation and amendment of international conventions applicable to the protection of human life at sea shows their objectively growing interest in the verified interpretation of international legal norms, their effective application in this area, and the creation of an increasingly advanced legal framework for sustainable maritime navigation, with steady increase in its volume, and, at the same time, a decrease in the number of disasters at sea. The activities of the International Maritime Organization have made a significant contribution to the improvement of such legal framework at the universal level, which is more in line with the best available scientific and technical achievements and practices. At the same time, the article also notes legal shortcomings in this activity, first of all, the shiſt in the IMO emphasis from ensuring safety at sea to environmental issues.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. IMO has created a global platform for the development and adoption of documents relating to international maritime law that are in demand at this stage of scientific and technological development, while setting high standards of professionalism and specialization. The documents developed and adopted within the IMO framework are not legally identical, which is due not only to the well-known difference between the rules of an international treaty and decisions taken by international organizations. The same IMO document, adopted by the organization as an amendment to the convention, has a different status: before and aſter the States parties to the relevant convention express agreement with the document. The issue of relationship between the norms on the protection of human life at sea, outlined in general terms by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), on the one hand, and, on the other, the very detailed rules of the conventions developed under the IMO, remains disputable. It should be added that the number of States parties to UNCLOS is less than the number of States parties to some of the IMO conventions.

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