The International Maritime Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations which is responsible for measures to improve the safety of international shipping and to prevent marine pollution from ships. It also is involved in legal matters, including liability and compensation issues and the facilitation of international maritime traffic. It was established by means of a Convention adopted under the auspices of the United Nations in Geneva on 17 March 1948 and met for the first time in January 1959. It currently has 164 Member States. IMO's governing body is the Assembly which is made up of all 164 Member States and meets normally once every two years. It adopts the budget for the next biennium together with technical resolutions and recommendations prepared by subsidiary bodies during the previous two years. The Council acts as governing body in between Assembly sessions. It prepares the budget and work programme for the Assembly. The main technical work is carried out by the Maritime Safety, Marine Environment Protection, Legal, Technical Co-operation and Facilitation Committees and a number of sub-committees.

Georgia is a member of IMO since 1993.

When IMO first began operations its chief concern was to develop international treaties and other legislation concerning safety and marine pollution prevention. By the late 1970s, however, this work had been largely completed. After that IMO concentrated on keeping legislation up to date and ensuring that it is ratified by as many countries as possible. This has been so successful that many Conventions now apply to more than 98% of world merchant shipping tonnage. Currently the emphasis is on trying to ensure that these conventions and other treaties are properly implemented by the countries that have accepted them. The texts of conventions, codes and other instruments adopted by IMO can be found in the section dealing with Publications.
 

Because shipping is an international industry. If each nation developed its own safety legislation the result would be a maze of differing, often conflicting national laws. One nation, for example, might insist on lifeboats being made of steel and another of glass-reinforced plastic. Some nations might insist on very high safety standards while others might be more lax, acting as havens for sub-standard shipping.
IMO was established to adopt legislation. Governments are responsible for implementing it. When a Government accepts an IMO Convention it agrees to make it part of its own national law and to enforce it just like any other law. The problem is that some countries lack the expertise, experience and resources necessary to do this properly. Others perhaps put enforcement fairly low down their list of priorities.

With 164 Governments as Members IMO has plenty of teeth but some of them don't bite. The result is that serious casualty rates - probably the best way of seeing how effective Governments are at implementing legislation - vary enormously from flag to flag. The worst fleets have casualty rates that are a hundred times worse than those of the best.

IMO is concerned about this problem and in 1992 set up a special Sub-Committee on Flag State Implementation to improve the performance of Governments. Another way of raising standards is through port State control. The most important IMO conventions contain provisions for Governments to inspect foreign ships that visit their ports to ensure that they meet IMO standards. If they do not they can be detained until repairs are carried out. Experience has shown that this works best if countries join together to form regional port State control organizations.

IMO has encouraged this process and agreements have been signed covering Europe and the north Atlantic (Paris MOU); Asia and the Pacific (Tokyo MOU); Latin America (Acuerdo de Viña del Mar); Caribbean (Caribbean MOU); West and Central Africa (Abuja MOU); the Black Sea region (Black Sea MOU); the Mediterranean (Mediterranean MOU); and the Indian Ocean (Indian Ocean MOU).
IMO also has an extensive technical co-operation programme which concentrates on improving the ability of developing countries to help themselves. It concentrates on developing human resources through maritime training and similar activities.
 

In 1954 a treaty was adopted dealing with oil pollution from ships. IMO took over responsibility for this treaty in 1959, but it was not until 1967, when the tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground off the coast of the United Kingdom and spilled more than 120,000 tons of oil into the sea, that the shipping world realized just how serious the pollution threat was. Until then many people had believed that the seas were big enough to cope with any pollution caused by human activity. Since then IMO has developed numerous measures to combat marine pollution - including that caused by the dumping into theseas of wastes generated by land-based activities. Thanks in part to these measures oil pollution from ships was cut by about 60% during the 1980s, according to figures compiled by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.