Damage during maritime transportation: Cameroon boosts liability and compensation regime

IMO is helping to drive progress on ratifying, implementing and enforcing IMO liability instruments in Cameroon with a workshop in Yaoundé (21-25 October).

Liability and compensation for damage caused during maritime transportation, including oil pollution and wreck removal, is covered by a range of IMO conventions, international legal instruments and guidance.

IMO legal experts are providing a comprehensive overview of these to officials of Cameroon, who in turn are presenting the law-making process and implementation of IMO conventions in their national legislation. Learning about the national experiences in drafting national maritime legislation, including any challenges faced in implementing IMO instruments, will help to inform IMO's work on the subject going forward.

In his opening address the Minister of Transport of the Republic of Cameroon, Mr. Jean Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe said that Cameroon should accede and domesticate all relevant IMO instruments on liability and compensation of damage caused by maritime transport. This would ensure payments of costs for such damage and enhance sustainable shipping in view of some recent incidents where victims of shipping incidents had been left without compensation. The Minister proposed a further conference on relevant maritime insurance issues next year in Kribi, Cameroon, to strengthen, and lead to further accessions of, the relevant IMO liability and compensation conventions.

To date, Cameroon has acceded to the Civil Liability Convention of 1992 - which governs the liability of shipowners for oil pollution damage - and is State Party to the 1992 Fund Convention.

The national workshop is being hosted by the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Cameroon and the Cameroon Shippers' Council in cooperation with IMO.

Watch Canal2International news story (from 31mins30) about the event (French language).