Prevention, preparedness, and response on marine pollution

International Criminal Police Organization which is an inter-governmental organization (195 member countries) / fisheries crimes, marine pollution crimes (Eg. 30 days at sea)

The Member States of the European Union shall provide each other with mutual assistance and shall cooperate with one another through their customs administrations, with a view to preventing and detecting infringements of national customs provisions; prosecuting and punishing infringements of Community and national customs provisions.

Convention on mutual assistance for detection and repression of customs fraud between France and Spain: joint operations, information exchange, area of operation for vessels and aircrafts, operational assistance, meetings.

The main objective of the Southwest Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission (SWIOFC) is to promote the sustainable utilization of the living marine resources of the Southwest Indian Ocean region, by the proper management and development of the living marine resources, and to address common problems of fisheries management and development faced by the Members of SWIOFC. Members are Comoros, France, Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, United Rep. of Tanzania and Yemen.

The objective of the Commission is to promote the effective conservation, management and development of the living marine resources of the area, iaw the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, and address common problems of fisheries management and development faced by its members. The members are Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, European Union, France, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Republic of Korea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent/Grenadines, Spain, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, UK, US, and Venezuela.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, established in 2004 by the Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Members: Australia, China, Canada, Cook Is, EU, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, France, Indonesia, Japan, Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Chinese Taipei, Tonga, Tuvalu, US, and Vanuatu.

The V-RMTC is a virtual network connecting Maritime Operation Centres of member Navies. Through the system, based on commercial hardware and a software developed within the Italian Navy, it is possible to share among participants selected unclassified information related to merchant shipping (bigger than 300 tons). The hub of the V-RMTC is located in Rome, at the Italian Maritime Operation Centre (MOC) of the Fleet Command Headquarter (CINCNAV). The MOC gathers and merges the information received, broadcasts a single near-real time recognized picture to all V-RMTC participating Navies. The community has 33 member Navies. V-RMTC: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Malta, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK, the US. T-RMN: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Peru. Following Navies may also join - Ghana, Qatar, Australia, Japan, Cameroon, and Ecuador.

In 1976, a Conference of Plenipotentiaries representing sixteen Mediterranean coastal States and the European Communities adopted the Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea Against Pollution (Barcelona Convention). This included the “Regional Oil Combating Centre” (ROCC) with the mandate to strengthen the capacities of coastal States in the Mediterranean region. It also facilitates cooperation among those States to combat massive marine pollution by oil, particularly by developing national capacities to combat oil pollution and by establishing a regional information system with a view to dealing with marine pollution emergencies. In 1989, the name of the Centre was changed to the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC). The International Maritime Organization (IMO), in cooperation with UNEP/MAP, administers REMPEC.

The Government of Saint Lucia and the Government of the French Republic passed an agreement on maritime search and rescue. Based on the SAR conferences held in Caracas (Venezuela) in 1984 and in Lisbon (Portugal) in 1994, which made France responsible for a maritime Search and Rescue Region (SRR), in the Western Atlantic Ocean and the Eastern Caribbean Sea, in which Saint Lucia is geographically located. In this SRR, the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre is MRCC Fort-de-France.

Based on information from Parties and Partners, the RMIFC receives, processes, fuses, stores, shares and exchanges information with the objective of issuing an alert in the event of imminent or proven danger to maritime security and safety in its general area of interest considered to be the regional maritime space laying between latitudes 26 ° North and 37 ° South and longitudes 20 ° East and 76 ° East. The general area of interest of the RMIFC is complementary to that of the IFC Singapore in the east and the Gulf of Guinea maritime safety and security architecture in the west.

This operational cooperation plan applies to large-scale spill response (oil, HNS). It establishes the technical conditions and procedures for requests for assistance between the General Direction of the Maritime Authority (Portugal) and the Maritime Prefecture of the Atlantic (France) regarding the deployment and activation of assets. The applicable area is between the parallels 40°N and 46°N, and from the meridian 14°W, to the Portuguese, Spanish and French coasts. The parties may agree to extend it beyond this area in case of exceptional situation.