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GENERAL SURVEY
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it is important to provide sanctions, and also perhaps, as the Australian Government suggests, to extend the clause so as to cover cases of fraud in this connection as well as forgery.
VI.
Supervision of enforcement (Question 6).
This last Question in the Questionnaire asked whether provision should be made for special measures for supervising the enforcement of the rules of the Draft Convention, and whether, in particular, the competent authorities in each country (which would usually be the authorities generally responsible for ensuring compliance with the national laws or regulations relating to the safety of navigation) should be empowered to detain any vessel not carrying certificated officers as required by the Draft Convention.
As in the case of Question 5, the only Government which has definitely returned a negative reply is the Netherlands, which considers that the subject-matter of the above Question has already been sufficiently regulated by the London Convention of May 1929 and that there is therefore no need for further international regulations on the matter.1 For the rest, the replies of the Govern- ments may most conveniently be considered (1) in relation to the question of the enforcement of the rules of the Draft Convention on national vessels, and (2) in relation to foreign vessels.
1
(1) So far as national vessels are concerned, the replies of the Governments are such that it may be assumed to be agreed that an efficient inspecting agency should be provided in each country for ensuring observance of the rules of the Draft Convention on these vessels, and that, as the Indian Government proposes, a clause to that effect might be included in the Draft Convention. Such inspecting agencies, in fact, may be assumed to exist already in countries which have laws or regulations relating to certificates of professional competency.
For the provisions of Article 48 of the London Convention, see footnote, ante, p. 57.
QUESTION 6
Further, the principle that the competent national authorities should be empowered to detain national vessels on which a breach of the Draft Convention has been committed would also seem to be generally accepted. Most of the Governments, however, do not specify the nature of the cases for which they consider that this power should be conferred. Others expressly or impliedly suggest that it should be left to national laws or regula- tions to determine this point. Others, again, indicate that the possible breaches of the rules to be proposed in the Draft Convention may be of varying degrees of importance and that the detention of a vessel for a breach of minor importance would be too serious a measure for such cases which, it may be added, would in any event fall within the range of the sanctions already dealt with under Question 5. It is accordingly suggested by a number of Governments (e.g. Australia, Cuba, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Sweden) that the power of detention should only be given for serious breaches, e.g. breaches amounting to rendering the vessel unseaworthy or constituting an obvious danger to the lives of the persons on board.
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It would thus appear that the situation of the replies as a whole on the above point would best be met by a provision in the Draft Convention requiring national laws or regulations to determine the cases in which it will be possible to detain national vessels for a breach committed on them of the rules laid down in the draft.
(2) So far as foreign vessels are concerned, however, the replies on the whole express considerable hesitation as to the extent to which the rules of the Draft Convention should be enforced on them. Many of the replies do not specifically refer to foreign vessels, but are in general terms which may be, but perhaps in most cases are not, intended to cover both national and foreign vessels. Others express the view that the Draft Convention should only deal with the enforcement of its provisions national vessels (e.g. India), or should reserve such enforcement entirely or at any rate in principle for the authorities of the country of the vessel (e.g. Denmark, Latvia, Norway, Rumania, Sweden, Yugoslavia). Similarly, the French Government points to the friction which is sometimes caused between Governments in the enforcement of maritime Conventions on foreign vessels,
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