International Maritime Organization (IMO)
4 Albert Embankment
London
Global
SE1 7SR
United Kingdom
44.20.7587.3119
44.20.7587.3210
Shipping is perhaps the most international of all the world's great industries and one of the most dangerous. It has always been recognized that the best way of improving safety at sea is by developing international regulations that are followed by all shipping nations and from the mid-19th century onwards a number of such treaties were adopted. Several countries proposed that a permanent international body should be established to promote maritime safety more effectively, but it was not until the establishment of the United Nations itself that these hopes were realized. In 1948 an international conference in Geneva adopted a convention formally establishing IMO (the original name was the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization, or IMCO, but the name was changed in 1982 to IMO). <p> The IMO Convention entered into force in 1958 and the new Organization met for the first time the following year. <p> The purposes of the Organization, as summarized by Article 1(a) of the Convention, are \to provide machinery for cooperation among Governments in the field of governmental regulation and practices relating to technical matters of all kinds affecting shipping engaged in international trade
- Building Partnerships for the Environmental Protection and Management of the East Asian Seas
- Wider Caribbean Initiative for Ship-Generated Waste
- East Asian Seas Region: Development and Implementation of Public Private Partnerships in Environmental Investments
- Implementation of Sustainable Development Strategy for the Seas of East Asia
- Second Shandong Environment - under WB/GEF Partnership Investment Fund for Pollution Reduction in the LME of East Asia
- Building Partnerships to Assist Developing Countries to Reduce the Transfer of Harmful Aquatic Organisms in Ships' Ballast Water (GloBallast Partnerships)
- Prevention and Management of Marine Pollution in the East Asian Seas
- Removal of Barriers to the Effective Implementation of Ballast Water Control and Management Measures in Developing Countries (GloBallast)
- Marine Electronic Highway Demonstration
