Although forty-seven countries have now ratified the convention, substantially more than the 30 required, whether the requirement for Parties to hold 35% of the world’s tonnage has been met is still being calculated.
Tonnage figures are derived from data supplied to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Secretariat by IHS Maritime & Trade. The datasets are normally provided to IMO twice each year, as at 31 December for treaty purposes, and as at 30 June for determining IMO Member States’ financial assessments.
Those assessments are based, in part, on fleet tonnage figures supplied to IHS Maritime & Trade by IMO Member States, who have until October 31st each year to confirm their tonnage. Because of stringent IMO deadlines for determining financial assessments, those tonnage figures sometimes cannot be verified prior to submission to IMO.
The compiled 2015 assessment tonnages, released to IMO’s Member States on 16 December 2015, contained some unverified data, but also revealed that the conditions for entry into force of the BWM Convention might have been met, by a very small margin. IMO was also aware that between June and November 2015, some Parties gained tonnage and others lost tonnage. In light of this, IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu requested a complete verification of tonnage data as at the time of the deposits by Morocco, Indonesia and Ghana prior to determining whether or not the BWM Convention had indeed met the entry-into-force requirements.
According to the IMO, IHS Maritime & Trade has worked diligently to verify the tonnage figures since that request. However, the verification process has not yet conclude they say.
If the most recent ratifications by Morocco, Indonesia and Ghana add sufficient tonnage, the BWM Convention would enter into force on 24 November 2016.
