Minister, Excellencies, President of the Comité Maritime International, President of the Greek Maritime Law Association, Chairman of the organizing committee, Distinguished guests and participants, Ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to be with you this evening and to have the opportunity to address one of the most venerable, august and distinguished of all the many international organizations in the maritime field. The Organization I represent here, IMO, is only 60 years old, which, compared with CMI, which was formally established as long ago as 1897, makes us a mere stripling. And, while CMI is to be congratulated on its longevity, perhaps the most impressive thing about it is its continuing relevance in today's modern maritime world. As all effective and meaningful organizations are able to do, CMI has managed to adapt its mission and its structures to reflect changing times and new demands. This is no easy task and you should be heartily congratulated for that.

CMI and IMO have often pursued similar objectives and the two organizations have been able to build a mutually beneficial working relationship. The formation of IMO's Legal Committee, in 1967, provided perhaps the most seismic of the many changes in the landscape of maritime law to which CMI has had to respond. It ushered in the era in which IMO has taken on the role of organizing diplomatic conferences in several legal fields affecting shipping, a role in which CMI had previously had a heavy involvement.

This brought the two Organizations much closer, with our Legal Committee providing a natural channel through which co-operation between CMI and IMO could be fostered. As a result, a long and fruitful relationship of collaboration between us has been established and the contribution of CMI to the development of many, if not most, of IMO's legal instruments has been invaluable.

Your conference this week will give you the opportunity not only to promote and further maritime law and to listen to experts in many different fields, but also to meet friends and make new contacts. You have a packed agenda and the main topics that you have chosen to discuss will be of great interest for anyone currently dealing with maritime law - most certainly for IMO.

Your Conference will devote a good deal of its time to two issues that are of considerable interest to IMO. The first of these, Places of Refuge for Ships in Distress, has, for some considerable time, been very high on IMO's agenda in a number of its committees and sub-committees. Indeed, the notion of providing refuge for ships in distress was first raised at IMO in the late 1980s, during the Legal Committee's consideration of the draft provisions of the International Convention on Salvage, which was adopted in 1989.

The need to review the issues surrounding the requirement for places of refuge was later included in a list of measures aimed at enhancing safety and minimizing the risk of oil pollution, drawn up by our Maritime Safety Committee, in December 2000, in response to the tanker Erika sinking, off the Atlantic Ocean coast of France, in December 1999. Further urgency to the work was added in the aftermath of the incident involving the tanker Castor which, in December 2000, developed a structural problem in the Mediterranean Sea. This led IMO to undertake, as a matter of priority, a global consideration of the problem of places of refuge for disabled vessels. The November 2002 sinking, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Spain, of the tanker Prestige further highlighted the issue and, in November 2003, the IMO Assembly adopted a resolution, accompanied by meticulously drafted all-embracing Guidelines, addressing the issue of places of refuge for ships in distress - an important step in improving maritime safety and helping to protect the marine environment.

Our Legal Committee was very much involved in all these discussions, in which the CMI also took an active role.

A second issue to be addressed by your Conference relates to the harmonization of implementation measures. In this respect, the maritime legal framework, within which most countries operate, is defined by a series of international treaty instruments, most of which have been developed through IMO - a process, which has long been recognized as the only effective way to regulate such an international industry as shipping, particularly one in which the prime physical assets, i.e. the ships themselves, continually move from one jurisdiction to another.

Despite this unification, however, there remains considerable diversity in the manner in which international maritime conventions have been implemented and applied by States parties and, in particular, by their courts, leaving the interpretation of key provisions unclear and leading, in many cases, to the undesirable practice of "forum shopping". The importance of your efforts to draft guidelines for the harmonization of procedures in one area, the "Procedural Rules relating to the Limitation of Liability in Maritime Law", is, therefore, acknowledged with appreciation and I have every confidence that the Conference will provide an excellent opportunity to make substantive progress in this regard.

Turning now to the third of the major topics on your agenda, CMI has worked extensively with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the drafting of the UNCITRAL Convention on Carriage of Goods, which was approved in July this year. The presentation, analysis and discussion of this instrument promise to be a highlight of this Conference and a topic of almost universal interest within the field of maritime law.

The other issues to occupy the time of your Conference are no less important nor less interesting. Among them, I would highlight the Promotion of Quality Shipping by Non-Technical Measures; the Implementation of Maritime Conventions Relating to Limitation of Liability; the 2007 Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks; and the Recycling of Ships. And I have no doubt that, when the Legal Committee meets in a week's time to discuss a possible protocol to the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, the CMI will actively participate in the debate. I very much look forward to that.

Ladies and gentlemen, I note from the conference programme that one of your continuing objectives is to entice younger individuals into the CMI and, more generally, into the profession of maritime law. This finds a strong echo in the efforts currently being undertaken by the shipping industry - with my full support - to attract a new generation of seafarers; and I appreciate the opportunity to share with you my thoughts on such a crucial issue.

There is a crucial need to bring new, young recruits into the industry. Shipping may be the global delivery mechanism that underpins world trade and on which billions of people depend for their survival and prosperity; but if the global pool of competent, properly qualified, certified and efficient seafarers is to meet the predicted demand, then seafaring must be seen as a viable career choice for people of the right calibre. The employment conditions for seafarers must be at least comparable to those found in other industries. By paying attention to details of seafarers' training, welfare, pay, living conditions, job security, job satisfaction and prospects for career advancement, the attractiveness of seafaring as a profession, in what today has become a very competitive and international employment market, can and must be improved.

Shipping needs to be seen as an interesting, appealing and practicable option for school and college leavers. It must be able to provide a career path that matches the aspirations of the ambitious and capable young people that it so urgently needs to attract and retain. I hope that you, as close partners in a fascinating and dynamic industry will go out and spread the word. The world's seafarers are the unrecognized heroes of the modern, global economy. The prosperity of billions of people depends on efficient and effective sea transport. These unsung people, from Master to deck hand, from all corners of the world, operate today's complex, high-tech ships every hour of every day of the year. Without them, international trade would simply come to a halt.

However, in order to attract young people to, and retain existing seafarers in, the maritime profession, we need, in addition to helping them obtain high professional qualifications, to help instil in them a feeling of security and protection: against undue criminalization, against denying them shore leave and, in these days, against the menace of pirates when sailing off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

As an aside, and in the context of new recruits to the profession of maritime law, it gives me great pleasure to address, every year, in my capacity as Chairman of the Governing Board of the International Maritime Law Institute, based in Malta, the graduation ceremony at IMLI and to welcome a fresh influx of new recruits to the profession. I would be delighted to see some of them among your ranks when I next address a CMI gathering.

Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps it is because the CMI Conferences are convened only every three to four years that they are always such major events for the maritime law profession. In this case, by coming back to Athens, 46 years after you last held your conference here, you return to a city, and a country, that enjoy a very special relationship with the sea and all matters maritime - both in the domestic and the international fields. Indeed, as I said just a couple of weeks ago at the World Maritime Day parallel event, which was celebrated here in Athens at the invitation of the Greek Government and with the presence of the Greek Prime Minister, there can be few countries in the world in which shipping is so solidly rooted and so much a part of the national consciousness as it is here in Greece - a country steeped in maritime tradition, where shipping is, almost literally, in the blood. The only question I have for you about your choice of venue is "Why has it taken so long for you to come back?"

And, on that note, may I conclude by wishing you every success in what I am certain will be a lively and challenging 39th CMI Conference.

Thank you.