FACILITATION CONVENTION

INTRODUCTION
The Convention of Facilitation of International
Maritime Traffic was held under the aegis of
IMO and was framed on the ninth day of April
1965.

OBJECTIVE
To

facilitate maritime traffic by simplifying

and reducing to a minimum.
The Contracting Governments undertake to
adopt all appropriate measures to facilitate
and expedite international maritime traffic
and to prevent unnecessary delays to ships
and to persons and property on board.

APPLICATION
The Convention applies to coastal and noncoastal states.
The provisions do not apply to warships and
pleasure yachts.
Preventing the application of wider facilities
Preserve public morality

The contents of the Convention

are in form of:
STANDARDS: Measures, the uniform
application of which is necessary and
practicable
b) RECOMMENDED PRACTICES: Measures, the
application of which is desirable in order to
facilitate maritime traffic.
Annex B of the Convention is divided into 5
sections, each of these is discussed below in
brief:
a)

SECTION 1
a)

b)

Deals with the Definitions- Cargo, Crews

effect, Crew Member, Mail, Public
Authorities, Shipowner, Ships Equipment,
Ships spare parts, Ships stores and Time of
arrival.
Forms the General Provisions. For
instance, the Standard is that public
authorities should call only for essential
information and the Recommended Practice
is that two or more documents should be
combined into one, when an appreciable
degree of facilitation would result.

SECTION 2
The section deals with the formalities required from
shipowners by the public authorities on the arrival and
departure of the ship.
The Standard is that the authorities should call only for
the following documents:
1) General Declaration
2) Cargo Declaration
3) Ships Stores Declaration
4) Crews Effects Declaration
5) Crew List
6) Passenger List
7) Documents required under the Universal Postal
Convention for mail
8) Maritime Declaration of Health

Section 2 (c) and 2 (d)

Arrival

Departure

General
declaration

Cargo declaration

Ships stores
declaration

Crews effects
declaration

Crew list
declaration

Passenger list

Maritime
declaration of
health

Section 2 (e) and (f)

Sec.

(e) deals with the measures to

facilitate clearance of cargo, passengers,
crew and baggage.
Sec. (f) suggests that if the ports of call
are two or more in the same state,
formalities at second port of call should be
kept at the minimum

Section 3
The

Passport should be taken as the valid

document relating to individuals. The
same should be checked only once on
arrival and once on departure and handed
back immediately after examination.

Section 4
a)

b)

c)

d)

It is a Simple documents to be widely

published, required in respect of shipments of
certain animals, plants or products thereof.
Whenever practicable, pratique should be
granted by radio.
As far as possible, health authorities should
join a ship prior to entry of ship into port.
Public authorities should maintain at as many
ports as possible facilities for administration
of public health, animal and agricultural
quarantine measures.

Section 5
Provisions in this section cover the security
and services aspects at ports. It also cover
aspects with regard to facilitation of maritime
traffic when cargo is not discharged at the
intended destination. Section 5 (e) deals with
the limitation of shipowners responsibilities.
Some of these are:

a)

b)

c)

A single comprehensive bond

recommended for security for immigration,
customs, public health, agricultural
quarantine or similar laws.
There should be no detention to ships for
errors in documents, which are inadvertent
and the ship should be allowed to sail after
correction.
Services outside service hours should not
exceed actual cost.