1. The organization was originally called the International Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO). In 1982 the name was changed to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The organization is referred to as IMO throughout this paper.
2. Ships' Routeing and Traffic Separation Schemes, 1970 and 1971 edns, and Ships' Routeing, 1973, 1978 and 1984 edns.
3. Rule 1(d) of the COLREGS 1972 provides, ‘Traffic Separation Schemes may be adopted by the Organisation [meaning IMO — see Article 11.3 Convention on the International Regulations 1972] for the purposes of these Rules’. According to Rule 10(a), Rule 10 ‘applies to Traffic Separation Schemes adopted by the Organisation’. There are no multilateral treaties dealing with other forms of routeing, so that one can infer that IMO has primary responsibility over high seas routeing schemes, especially TSSs. A number of provisions of UNCLOS provide for the adoption or examination of TSS proposals by ‘the competent international organisation’. The absence of a definition of this leaves room for doubt that IMO is contemplated, but Annex VIII, Article 2.2 UNCLOS, governing the drawing up and maintenance of a list of experts for the purposes of special arbitration, gives it this function in the field of navigation, which, presumably, includes TSSs. Other organizations with maritime interests are given this function in different fields. The suggestion is that IMO has the expertise in this field and so is ‘the competent international organisation’.
4. 1984 edn, at paragraph 1.2.
5. Navigation hazards in the Gulf of Mexico;Baker;paper for US Institute of Navigation,6111969