Members of the IAPH Risk and Resilience Committee (RRC) met online on 5 July. The meeting began with an update from Chris Trelawny from InterPortPolice and Jakob Larson of BIMCO on the current status of the IMO ‘Guidelines for the prevention and suppression of the smuggling of drugs, psychotropic substances and precursor chemicals on ships engaged in international maritime traffic’. Following approval at the most recent IMO Facilitation Committee meeting (FAL 48) to amend these guidelines, the speakers highlighted the opportunity and need to develop practical and easy-to-use guidance for all stakeholders across the port community, and called for ports to provide their input to the process. As a next step, IAPH invites member ports to provide their remarks on how these guidelines could best be amended to support their interests, as well as to submit best practice examples of handling cases of illicit trade from their ports. On maritime anti-corruption, Martin Benderson from the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) introduced a new report on the socio-economic costs of maritime corruption in Nigeria, and the 10-step guidance documents containing actions that ports can take to help combat corruption in vessel clearance, as part of the ongoing collaboration with IAPH. The Committee noted with interest the work being carried out by MACN to increase information sharing and cooperation between ports and shipping to better identify and tackle cases of corruption. Members then discussed ways to take this item forward, starting with the sharing of port initiatives and case studies with IAPH and MACN to showcase the positive collective action taking place globally.
