During the Maritime Safety Committee - 74th session, IMO meeting encourages regional agreements on anti-piracy measures.

The number of acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships reported to the IMO during 2000 was up by more than 50 per cent over the equivalent figure for 1999, the Organization's Maritime Safety Committee was told last week.

The Committee noted with concern that the number of incidents had risen to 471, representing an increase of 162 in number or 52 percentage points over the figure for 1999; and that the total number of incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships reported to have occurred from 1984 to the end of May 2001, was 2,309.

Although the Committee welcomed the information that, during 2000, the number of incidents reported had decreased from 4 to 2 in the Mediterranean Sea and from 36 to 33 in West Africa, it was deeply concerned to note that, over the same period, the number of incidents reported had increased from 37 to 112 in the Malacca Strait, from 136 to 140 in the South China Sea, from 51 to 109 in the Indian Ocean, from 16 to 29 in East Africa and from 29 to 41 in South America and the Caribbean over the 1999 figures.

Most of the attacks worldwide were reported to have occurred in coastal States' concerned territorial waters while the ships were at anchor or berthed. The Committee was extremely concerned that, during the same period, the crews of the ships involved in the reported incidents had been violently attacked by groups of five to ten persons carrying knives or guns as a result of which seventy-two crew members had been killed, one hundred and twenty-nine had been wounded and five had been reported missing; and that, in addition, one ship had been destroyed, three ships had gone missing and on three occasions the attackers had used explosive devices.

The Committee recognized that the maritime community could no longer tolerate this situation and the serious repercussions it has on the safety of passengers and crews and therefore, once again, invited all Governments (of flag, port and coastal States) and the industry to intensify their efforts to eradicate these unlawful acts.

Effective responses to incidents of piracy and armed robbery at sea must be based on preventive measures, measures for reporting incidents, and enforcement, including the training of enforcement personnel and the provision of enforcement vessels and equipment, and that the ability of States to make such effective responses is substantially enhanced when regional cooperation arrangements are in place.

Shipping is perhaps the most international of all the world's great industries and one of the most dangerous. It has always been recognized that the best way of improving safety at sea is by developing international regulations that are followed by all shipping nations and from the mid-19th century onwards a number of such treaties were adopted.

In 1948 an international conference in Geneva adopted a convention formally establishing IMO (the original name was the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization, or IMCO, but the name was changed in 1982 to IMO).

The IMO Convention entered into force in 1958 and the new Organization met for the first time the following year.

With a staff of 300 people, IMO is one of the smallest of all United Nations agencies. But it has achieved considerable success in achieving its aim of "safer shipping and cleaner oceans".