The merchant navy academics--- an import-export of administrative-management lessons.
Transfer of newly researched knowledge on various aspects of managements, like administrative decision-making which effectively conform to the principles of democracy, the methods of achieving transparency in governance by way of making the reports reach to public, methods and specific places of implementing measures to achieve human safety, the methods of effecting controls, particularly regarding those for security in the heightened terrorism environment, severely balancing it with the freedom of movement to people and the flow of trade- these are some very absorbing topics we come across when undergoing academics for merchant naval courses.
Ever pondered as an untrained member of public about how would you carry out investigations into any accidents happening around yourself!? Never mind. If not about the criminal investigation into murder cases which require forensic work and the police, we are still given lessons on investigations of administrative nature into those involving merchant ships. It is really good to know that whatever may be the political system of the member countries of the United Nations, the UN itself works on the principles of democracy. And which it had to for the obvious reasons of fulfilling the objectives of all member states.
And still more interesting is to know that the democratic functioning and public attitudes at that highest level of congregation of world governments is not much different from what we see here in India- Indian parliament and state assemblies! Just that no hand fights have picked up in General Assembly of the UN. But the UN think-tanks do take into account the ‘practical’ or ‘the other’ conditions which the member states would be considering for ratifying or rejecting any legislation passed by it. Hence, smart enough, they designed the method of Tacit Acceptance, for ratification of laws in which the law is deemed to have been passed after the specified time period, unless the member states do not submit, in writing, exactly how and why would they object to its passing, within that stipulated period.! Smart , na.
Then, the think-tanks, being democratic, also understood the technical and intellectual contrast of the member states which might come in way of passing a law. Hence, they re-defined the concept of ‘majority’ for passing of each bill. In general, in our shipping field, the majority is usually considered as ‘specified number of member states, having a specified percentage of total world’s fleet’. Therefore, the democracy in the UN simply does not rest on the first-by-post, ( the majority of numbers concept) - something much different from our Indian philosophy. We have largely depended on the weight of numbers, not giving much importance to how much weight-age the number-makers should individually get.
Then, the laws formation generally begins from the birth stage called as the ‘Conventions’ , which literally translates as-- a belief. Thus, everything begins with the belief of human beings in-principle in something. The Convention specifically writes down that the assembly( of the UN or IMO) ( to answer to the question of who all member states), recalling (to the question of why of the rising of belief among the member states), considering ( to the question of what are the fundamental beliefs of the member states), having considered (to the question of any specific incident or any practical scenario causing it) , agree ,( proceed on to mention the broad term approach of doing what all to rectify the problem).
Conventions and resolutions are further composed of various morality and ethics (the M&E) principles, called the Articles, to be adhered to in achieving the objectives.
The further specific problems arising in achieving the ends of a Convention are resolved through forming a Resolution about it. The technical and technological work essential to achieving is organized by the expert committees.
Therefore we have things like the IMO’s “International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from ships, 1973”
With lots of resolutions taking place under it. And the two expert committees called the Marine Environment Protection committee (the MEPC) and the Maritime Safety Committee (the MSC). The law enacted through this convention came to be known as the MARPOL 73/78 (acronym for Marine Pollution). In books, the compilation of Regulations is presented as an Annex to the Convention and special factions of the Regulations are put as a Code. The amendments to any convention are carried out through a different protocol, known as the protocol, and having different criteria for the majority-clearing. The protocols and conventions can have Amendments only by way of Explicit Acceptance,(method opposite to Tacit Acceptance). The expert committee works are relatively easier for acceptance or rejection by the member states, through the Tacit Acceptance procedure.
The broadest umbrella convention that gives cover/the impetus to all works in the maritime affairs is known as the International Convention for Safety of Life at sea, popularly known as the SOLAS convention, which brought about a legislation of the same name.
The MARPOL convention has virtually trained guns on all thinkable sources of pollution , anywhere -on land or at sea. However, it is meant to be applied on ships and sea-related incidents only. Therefore, crude oil (from cargo and bunkers of ships), air (from the funnels of ships), ballast (from the ballast water), anti-fouling (from the paint work on the walls of ships), vibration (from the infrasonic vibrations produced by propellers of merchant ships, bad for the endangered marine species), noise ( from noise produced by ships machinery), noxious liquid ( noxious cargo of ships).-- everything is covered.
These laws specifically zoom down on methods of achieving the control- which begins at the design criteria of the ship, specifically mentioning, in intriguing details, the kinds of designs permitted, the quality, the measurements, of each design, specifically for the construction of ships. Very surprising is to feel that, despite being so specific, these details still make endeavors not to chain down human creativity so long as the purpose is met. Therefore, in theory, the novel designs of at least the same standards are allowed to take shape of reality after special considerations. These details are all are given by the expert committees, the members (engineers, architects, research scientists, etc) of which are surely coming from high placed technical universities the world over, and as a matter of fact mostly in the US, Canada, Europe and Japan. (developing nations have lesser know-how on the technological work, don’t we?)
The IMO is well aware that the purposes cannot be met unless the member states are really inclined towards that. Hence, we have things like the Port State Control, in which the host country for any trading merchant vessel has the right to carry out inspections of the ships for the compliance of rules, although the prime responsibility of which rest with the flag state of the ship. Imagine what happens when an Indian Ship visit’s the US?! Guessed right, if you are not a jingoist and if you are honest and truthful to yourself, our ships conditions have graduated to the grey list from black-list of the US port state, the ‘port state’ over there being constituted of the US Coast Guard. !!.
The IMO is also aware that such inspections may also become tool for a prejudicial actions towards other countries- say on the basis of colour, religion, mutual hostilities. And inferior ships may put claims of such discriminations to save themselves when caught by any other nation. So the IMO has taken measures; -- guesses? It allows port-states to do more rigorous inspections on ships, which have been found to be sub-standard despite all such claims of discriminations, and the IMO specifically lays down conditions and procedures as to how a ship can be held-back (‘arrested’) -- keeping a fine balance between the business profitability of ship and it’s due compliance with the safety and environment laws. The prejudicial actions have been striven to be resolved by laying more objective and comprehensive conditions of detention of ships.
Return home. As these methods of working of the UN are spanning wings, the Indian participants-- the Indian Foreign Services delegates, the IAS representatives, the shipping professionals, the civil-aviation professionals, and many more of us are taking lessons to implement them back at home too for achieving the domestic social targets. Many amendments and changes in the our civil governance, the change in approach and outlook of our high ranking bureaucrats, I can sense, has undertones of interactions with such international legislations.
In our Ship Master’s course, we read about the Merchant shipping Act (the MSA)(1958, India Government) as the principle topics for management of ships, and understanding the affairs of the government offices or any governments of any country in the world towards the merchant ships, taking our very India’s policy work as the example. Most other democratic government will have more or less the same approach. The policies in regard to disciplinary measures, official log-book, reporting to authorities of flag state, appointments of authorities like the surveyors, receivers of wreck, salvaging operations at sea, employment of sea-farers, etc are more or less same as prescribed by our MSA. Now obviously because, our product is actually a work of the original the English Common Law, and then later ‘inspired’/affected/amended/homogenized-by various International Conventions, which affect likewise to all member states of the UN.
The mercantile laws which govern the carriage of cargo, keeping the balance between the responsibilities and liabilities of both, the shipper and the carrier, are also formulated by International bodies, like the BIMCO, the UNCTAD (the UN Conference on trade and development), etc. The Hague-Visby rules, the York-Antwerp rules, etc can thus be seen as the source of inspiration of our domestic legislations also, in regard to consumer protection.
I can feel the deep chasm between our domestic legal approach with and without these international rules. It seems that the ruling of the judicial courts also is taking influences as the expert advisors of the courts are getting more and more trained in these regulations. The changes, without the global experience, would be sluggish to come about. In bigger words, I feel that our people were, and still, lacking in the management lessons to achieve the same social welfare agenda which we all have otherwise resolved to achieve. The occasional fumbling of our local legislatures, state and central, in the law-making or its execution, keeps reminding me what we originally were as the best intellects of Indian society with the global experience. The various draconian Panchayati decrees gives back to us nothing but our own ground Intellectualism without the exposure of the world class.
Guess what the Hague-Visby Rules say about how to interpret a legislation.? The numbered-rules are to be given preference over the lettered-rules! What does it mean? Actually, the HV Rules regarding the duties and liabilities of shipper and the carrier, are composed of the Institute Clauses formed by the Lloyds of London. Institute clause have three parts-- clause-paramount, letter-rules and numbered-rules. Numbered-rules are but a simplified interpretations of the lettered- rules. So, the rules of Hague-Visby say that the executives need not do the hard work of interpreting the rules again and therefore they should blindly follow numbered-ruled preferentially over the lettered-rules.
Now, try thinking how would you interpret the MSA.? The guidelines obtained through various court verdicts and proper studies on this matter also give same approach as the Hague-Visby rules! Funny, na? But, the literal translation of the legislation is to be preferred over the attempts of trying to judge the intentions of the legislatures when he was formulating the law. Thus, the debates in the parliaments during the making of law should not be considered in interpreting the laws! And it’s good because the courts agree that various ‘other’ considerations are taken by the legislatures to vote for or against the making of a law! It’s practically the same everywhere in the world.
Besides these, the mercantile procedures, Safety conscientiousness is another place where the interfacing with global mandates has upped our outlook. Shipping had an IMO mandated requirement for the GPS position fixing from year1992 itself. the deployment of fire extinguishers, provisions of emergency escape in a mobile unit, the entire disaster management thoughts are much later pullulates from such shipping and civil aviation regulations only.
come to think of the Mumbai attacks, it reminds me that many more such attacks could be thwarted only because of international regulations like ISPS, which are striving to involve professionals like mariners to take charge of their respective fields. Thousands of container cargoes would become more difficult for rummaging by the customs, without our participation. Our global transience brings to us an awakening to security lessons of high standards.
Salvage, wreck handling, marine insurance, global logistics, supply chain of oil and gasoline, chartering and brokering of ship, stowaways, customs, immigration, are few topics we have some mild strokes of. Medical aid, seeking port of refuge, handling phenomena of weather on vast oceans-ice, storms, fog, horologic, is what we deal in regularly.
The principles on documenting and record-keeping learnt and practiced by us through the ISM code tell about the current out reach and severity in it. Compared against the cases like Nithari case and many more, the lapses involved like the elusive FIR by police expose the time lag between what we have already gained and what India has yet to achieve at the mass level.
