Council Extraordinary Session, 29th session, 23-24 November 2017

Budget and work programme
The Council approved the proposed budget and work programme for 2018-2019, for submission to the 30th Session of the IMO Assembly, for adoption.

The budget includes a proposed assessment on Member States of £31,864,000 for 2018 and £33,242,000 for 2019.

Periodic review of administrative requirements in mandatory IMO instruments
The Council endorsed the conclusion that all IMO organs had completed their work on the analysis and consideration of recommendations to reduce administrative burdens in IMO instruments. This work follows 13 recommendations made by the Ad-hoc Steering Group for Reducing Administrative requirements (SG-RAR).

The Council approved the final report for 2016-2017 on the periodic review of administrative requirements on mandatory IMO instruments, for presentation to the Assembly 30th session.  The report outlines a number of actions that have been taken in line with the recommendations. 

Missile launches condemned
The Council strongly condemned recent missile launches by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which posed clear and serious danger to the safety of shipping in international trade.

The Council reiterated the imperative of the action to be taken by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to cease unlawful ballistic missile launches over international shipping lanes, following MSC.1/Circ.1551.

MSC.1/Circ.1551, approved by the Maritime Safety Committee at its 97th session in November 2016, expresses grave concern over the reported launch of missiles by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea without due warnings. It urges all Members to attach the greatest importance to the safety of navigation and avoid taking any action which might adversely affect shipping engaged in international trade; and to comply with the requirements to issue relevant navigational warnings as set out in SOLAS and the World Wide Navigational Warning Service.

IMO to act as depository for Jeddah agreement on piracy and other illicit activities
The Council authorized the IMO Secretary-General to perform the functions of Depository for the Record of the Jeddah Meeting, a high-level meeting of signatories to the Djibouti Code of Conduct, held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The meeting adopted a revised Code of Conduct, known as the “Jeddah Amendment to the Djibouti Code of Conduct 2017”. 

The Council noted this was with the understanding that such authorization confers no additional competence to the Organization with respect to the illicit activities identified in the instrument.

The Council also requested IMO Member States, international organizations concerned, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Development Programme, EU, INTERPOL and others, to consider providing both financial and in-kind support for technical assistance activities to implement the Jeddah Amendment to the Djibouti Code of Conduct 2017.