Convention (No.179) concerning the Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers [*]
Done at: Geneva
Date enacted: 1996-10-22
In force: 2000-04-22
The General Conference of the International Labour Organization,
Having been convened at Geneva by the Governing Body of the International Labour Office, and having met in its Eighty-Fourth Session on 8 October 1996, and
Noting the provisions of the Seamen's Articles of Agreement Convention, 1926, the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948, the Employment Service Convention and Recommendation, 1948, the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949, the Seafarers' Engagement (Foreign Vessels) Recommendation, 1958, the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958, the Employment of Seafarers (Technical Developments) Recommendation, 1970, the Minimum Age Convention, 1973, the Continuity of Employment (Seafarers) Convention and Recommendation, 1976, the Merchant Shipping (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1976, the Repatriation of Seafarers Convention (Revised), 1987, and the Labour Inspection (Seafarers) Convention, 1996, and
Recalling the entry into force of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982, on 16 November 1994, and
Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with regard to the revision of the Placing of Seamen Convention, 1920, which is the third item on the agenda of the session, and
Having determined that these proposals shall take the form of an international Convention;
adopts, this twenty-second day of October of the year one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six, the following Convention, which may be cited as the Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers Convention, 1996:
Article 1
1. |
For the purpose of this Convention:
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2. |
To the extent it deems practicable, after consultation with the representative organizations of fishing-vessel owners and fishermen or those of owners of maritime mobile offshore units and seafarers serving on such units, as the case may be, the competent authority may apply the provisions of the Convention to fishermen or to seafarers serving on maritime mobile offshore units. |
Article 2
1. |
Nothing in the provisions of this Convention shall be deemed to:
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2. |
Where private recruitment and placement services have been or are to be established, they shall be operated within the territory of a Member only in conformity with a system of licensing or certification or other form of regulation. This system shall be established, maintained, modified or changed only after consultation with representative organizations of shipowners and seafarers. Undue proliferation of such private recruitment and placement services shall not be encouraged. |
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3. |
Nothing in this Convention shall affect the right of a Member to apply its laws and regulations to ships flying its flag in relation to the recruitment and placement of seafarers. |
Article 3
Nothing in this Convention shall in any manner prejudice the ability of a seafarer to exercise basic human rights, including trade union rights.
Article 4
1. |
A Member shall, by means of national laws or applicable regulations:
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2. |
A Member shall ensure that the competent authority:
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Article 5
1. |
All recruitment and placement services shall maintain a register of all seafarers recruited or placed through them, to be available for inspection by the competent authority. |
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2. |
All recruitment and placement services shall ensure that:
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3. |
Nothing in paragraph 2 above shall be understood as diminishing the obligations and responsibilities of the shipowner or the master. |
Article 6
1. |
The competent authority shall ensure that adequate machinery and procedures exist for the investigation, if necessary, of complaints concerning the activities of recruitment and placement services, involving, as appropriate, representatives of shipowners and seafarers. |
2. |
All recruitment and placement services shall examine and respond to any complaint concerning their activities and shall advise the competent authority of any unresolved complaint. |
3. |
Where complaints concerning working or living conditions on board ships are brought to the attention of the recruitment and placement services, they shall forward such complaints to the appropriate authority. |
4. |
Nothing in this Convention shall prevent the seafarer from bringing any complaint directly to the appropriate authority. |
Article 7
This Convention revises the Placing of Seamen Convention, 1920.
Article 8
The formal ratifications of this Convention shall be communicated to the Director-General of the International Labour Office for registration.
Article 9
1. |
This Convention shall be binding only upon those Members of the International Labour Organization whose ratifications have been registered with the Director-General. |
2. |
It shall come into force twelve months after the date on which the ratifications of two Members have been registered with the Director-General. |
3. |
Thereafter, this Convention shall come into force for any Member twelve months after the date on which its ratification has been registered. |
4. |
The ratification by a Member of this Convention shall, as from the date it has come into force, constitute an act of immediate denunciation of the Placing of Seamen Convention, 1920. |
Article 10
1. |
A Member which has ratified this Convention may denounce it after the expiration of ten years from the date on which the Convention first comes into force, by an act communicated to the Director-General of the International Labour Office for registration. Such denunciation shall not take effect until one year after the date on which it is registered. |
2. |
Each Member which has ratified this Convention and which does not, within the year following the expiration of the period of ten years mentioned in the preceding paragraph, exercise the right of denunciation provided for in this Article, will be bound for another period of ten years and, thereafter, may denounce this Convention at the expiration of each period of ten years under the terms provided for in this Article. |
Article 11
1. |
The Director-General of the International Labour Office shall notify all Members of the International Labour Organization of the registration of all ratifications and denunciations communicated by the Members of the Organization. |
2. |
When notifying the Members of the Organization of the registration of the second ratification, the Director-General shall draw the attention of the Members of the Organization to the date upon which the Convention shall come into force. |
Article 12
The Director-General of the International Labour Office shall communicate to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, for registration in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations, full particulars of all ratifications and acts of denunciation registered by the Director-General in accordance with the provisions of the preceding Articles.
Article 13
At such times as it may consider necessary, the Governing Body of the International Labour Office shall present to the General Conference a report on the working of this Convention and shall examine the desirability of placing on the agenda of the Conference the question of its revision in whole or in part.
Article 14
1. |
Should the Conference adopt a new Convention revising this Convention in whole or in part, then, unless the new Convention otherwise provides -
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2. |
This Convention shall in any case remain in force in its actual form and content for those Members which have ratified it but have not ratified the revising Convention. |
Article 15
The English and French versions of the text of this Convention are equally authoritative.
[*] |
This Convention revises the Placing of Seamen Convention adopted 1920-07-10, in force 1921-11-23. The Convention was revised in 2006 by the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) adopted 2006-02-07, not in force. |