EU Shipping Law
Page 1497
CHAPTER 36
Maritime safety: Maritime Labour Convention 2006
A. Introduction
36.001 This short chapter considers the position in European Union (“EU”) law of the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention of the International Labour Organization (“ILO”). The purpose of this chapter is to consider the EU law aspects rather than the detail of the Maritime Labour Convention itself. However, it is useful to review briefly the Maritime Labour Convention in Part B before considering the EU law aspects.B. Maritime Labour Convention 2006
36.002 The Maritime Labour Convention was adopted on 7 February 2006 by the ILO’s maritime session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva. This convention, which resulted from five years of negotiation, aimed at consolidating a number of previous international conventions; it was a measure designed to “create a single, coherent instrument embodying as far as possible all up-to-date standards of existing international maritime labour conventions and recommendations, as well as the fundamental principles to be found in other international conventions”.1 It entered into force on 20 August 2013. The EU has positively encouraged its Member States to ratify the Maritime Labour Convention.C. Council Decision 2007/431 authorising Member States to ratify, in the interests of the European Community, the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, of the International Labour Organisation
36.003 On 7 June 2007, the Council adopted Decision 2007/431 authorising Member States to ratify, in the interests of the European Community, the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, of the International Labour Organisation.2 The convention “lays the foundations for an international maritime labour code by setting minimum labour standards”.3 36.004 The second recital to the decision recalls that the convention