TNAG-2897-FCO40-4171-Hong-Kong-piracy-in-the-South-China-Sea-1993 — Page 97

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75.

ANNEX 1

TERMS OF referencE OF THE WORKING GROUP

Background

The Maritime Safety Committee, at its sixty-first session (7 to

11 December 1992), endorsed the Secretary-General's initiative to establish a Working Group on piracy and armed robbery to be made up of a limited number of Member Governments, including the littoral States of the Malacca Strait

(Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore), to consider and prepare a report:

outlining the problem in the Strait of Malacca;

specifying necessary navigational techniques;

recommending safety precautions and enforcement arrangements appropriate for:

crews;

shipowners and operators; and

flag, coastal and port States (individually or collectively on a regional basis); and

specifying the associated financial implications related to the above considerations.

The Committee recommended that, in carrying out its task, the Working Group should focus not only on the piracy problems identified in the particular area to be visited but should also prepare recommendations that will be applicable anywhere in the world.

A limited number of Member Governments have been invited to provide experts for the Working Group to consider and prepare reports on specific areas related to preventing or combating acts of piracy and armed robbery as follows:

prevention of attacks (United Kingdom and United States);

search and rescue (United States);

safety of navigation (Greece);

radiocommunications (Norway);

ships' routeing, navigational aids and VTS (Australia and Japan);

local expertise (Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore);

financial implications (Netherlands).

The assistance of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) (IMB's centre in Kuala Lumpur, in particular) has also been sought.

The terms of reference for the group's experts, as agreed by the meeting which took place in IMO Headquarters on 14 January 1993, are attached hereto.

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