London hosted last 17-19 March the 26th meeting of the Advisory Committee of the International Mobile Satellite Organisation (IMSO), chaired by the Marshall Islands.
One of the most controversial points of the meeting concerned the formula for calculating amounts to pay for services rendered by IMSO under the Long Range Identification and Tracking of Ships (LRIT) system. The LRIT system has been operational since 1 July 2009 and to date the Committee has examined five proposed LRIT Charging Formulas, respectively presented by the Director General (DG); Bahamas, Indonesia, Liberia, Marshall Islands and Vanuatu; Korea; Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Spain and the United Kingdom; and lastly Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru.
The meeting was marked by a long discussion about the concept of ‘fairness’ inherent to calculating the ‘LRIT formula’, as various parties consider that the proposal from the DG (Esteban Pacha-Vicente of Spain) and the ‘interim formula’ reached at the last Assembly impose overly high costs on the States. Some countries hold that the criterion for calculation of the LRIT formula should be the number of States covered by each data centre. Others, seconded by the European Commission (EC), recalled that the prerequisite of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) itself is based on the number and type of data centres (DCs), and that only that way can the number of ships and countries/flag be covered in the most rigorous manner. According to the Director General, the amount of administrative work involved in each audit of the DCs is practically equal; what varies is the scope of the technical and operational work, proportional to the amount of data to audit.
The AC ended up agreeing to revise the interim LRIT formula to be in force in 2011-2012, based on a proposal from Canada, and will recommend the adoption of same to the Assembly scheduled to meet in London on 12-16 July 2010. Vanuatu, Liberia and the Bahamas disassociated themselves in a statement, holding that this formula benefits the regional and co-operative DCs, in detriment to the national DCs. The Committee considered that it was premature to adopt a final version of the formula before April 2011, when it should possess new data. The AC thus also recommends to the upcoming Assembly that it should mandate the Committee to continue efforts to revise the formula.
Note that nearly 60 DCs currently follow the LRIT system, of which eight DCs are in trial phase, for coverage of more than 90 percent of the SOLAS (International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea) fleet. Data released by IMSO indicate that, as of February 2010, 37 LRIT agreements had been signed by the organisation and operators of LRIT data centres. In late 2009 IMSO began auditing those centres, besides setting up the International LRIT Data Exchange, in a phased manner and in line with the respective operational data, as per decisions from the IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee (MSC).
At the previous AC it was agreed that the LRIT charge (for data centres to join the system) for 2009 should be kept at £8,500 for 2010; that the audit charge per unit should be £6,500; that the audit charge for international exchange of LRIT data should be calculated as an audit unit; and also that the daily fee for specific services required of the LRIT co-ordinator should stay at £1,600 in 2010.
The AC also approved changes to the agreements for the development, adoption and sharing of costs vis-à-vis the IMSO budget, which had been subject to comments from Panama, Marshall Islands and the Inmarsat operator. This document and the others will be subject to approval at the 21st Assembly. These agreements will be annexed to the Reference Public Services Agreement and become an integral part of any Reference Public Services Agreement signed by the DG on IMSO’s behalf.
The “IMSO Business Plan 2011 to 2013” was also extensively debated, specifically the criteria for sharing costs between operators of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS), as well as the criteria for sharing current costs between GMDSS and the LRIT used in preparing the IMSO budget, in line with the business plan approved at the previous Assembly session.
Regarding cost sharing in GMDSS, the Assistant Director General reported that a proposal from Iridium to join the GMDSS system in the next few years was very unlikely. The regional operator Thuraya, based in the United Arab Emirates, gave a presentation on its activity at this AC session and expressed interest in operating the GMDSS (it should make a proposal to that end to MSC 88, which meets in December 2010), though in any case the short term prospect is that GMDSS will only be operated by Inmarsat.
As for administrative cost sharing by the GMDSS and LRIT, the DG proposed that the ratio currently in force, 70/30, be changed to 50/50 as from 2011, adding that if the growing financial complexity needed to calculate shared costs continues, this might lead to expanding the support from Mazars or contracting a full-time auditor. Inmarsat reacted positively to the DG’s proposal, with the nuance that the operator would also like to see approved the reduction of the ratio currently used in the “travel and administrative costs” items to 50/50, though this was not subject to approval of the AC.
The AC was informed that in the wake of the request from the MSC, only one proposal was received, at the end of 2009, submitted by Sweden as holder of the European Union Presidency and in the name of the 27 EU member States. It proposed that the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) be the body chosen to house and operate the International LRIT Data Centre (Permanent LRIT IDE) in Lisbon as from 2011. The IMSO weighed this proposal and asked for clarifications from the current EU Presidency (Spain), EMSA and the USA, which currently operates the IDEs on an interim basis. It also informed the MSC that it considers the European proposal to substantially meet the requirements for establishing, operating and maintaining the Permanent LRIT IDE.
Following the Committee’s request that the Director General assess the pros and cons of using outsourcing in the future to fill the post of IT and LRIT expert, ceded by the Turkish government, the DG considered that due to the sensitive nature of the data in question, same should be carried out by an IMSO employee and also that the current technician would be the best and even only candidate with a profile for the job. That expert should therefore join the IMSO staff as from this 1 May and hold the position on a permanent basis.
The previous AC had approved the text of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed by IMSO and the European Commission (EC), to make clear EMSA’s role. Given that paragraphs 4 and 6 of the draft MoU (which the Committee considered standard text contained in other IMSO MoUs and thus to be kept) were eliminated, as proposed by the EC, the DG was mandated to renegotiate the text with the Commission.
The DG reported on the meeting with the Director General of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organisation (ITSO) and with the Executive Secretary of the European Telecommunications Satellite Organisation (EUTELSAT IGO), jointly with the Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), on 19 February, where they discussed the possibility that the three satellite organisations could support capacity-building actions promoted by the ITU, along with initiatives in the area of emergency telecommunications.
The DG also explained that he had taken part in a meeting of the UNIDROIT Government Experts Committee in Rome last December, again putting forward to the Committee the question that IMSO is along with the ITU and International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) one of the potential candidates for the function of Supervisory Authority for the future International Registry for Space Assets. However, as this new function would require amending the IMSO Convention, the Committee did not reach consensus in this area. The DG should thus write to the UNIDROIT counterpart indicating IMSO’s preliminary position and will not recommend to the next IMSO Assembly that IMSO should assume the function of Supervisory Authority.
The next AC sessions have been scheduled for this 11 May in London and the following 4-6 October in Buenos Aires (in liaison with World Maritime Day commemorations).
Note that with since Antigua and Barbados joined IMSO in October 2009, the organisation currently comprises 94 States.
