iiiiii Contents Foreword ............................................. v Articles of the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traf?c ..................... 1 Annex Section 1 – De?nitions and general provisions ............... 9 Section 2 – Arrival, stay and departure of the ship ............ 15 Section 3 – Arrival and departure of persons ................ 27 Section 4 – Stowaways ................................. 37 Section 5 – Arrival, stay and departure of cargo and other articles ............................ 45 Section 6 – Public health and quarantine, including sanitary measures for animals and plants ................. 49 Section 7 – Miscellaneous provisions ...................... 51 Additional information on facilitation requirements Appendix 1 – IMO FAL Forms ............................. 57 Appendix 2 – Arrival and departure of persons ................ 65 Appendix 3 – Form of stowaway details referred to in Recommended Practice 4.6.2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Appendix 4 – IMDG Code, amendment 35-10, chapter 5.4 on Documentation .................. 69 Explanatory Manual to the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traf?c, 1965, as amended ...... 89 Section 1 – De?nitions and general provisions ............... 93 Section 2 – Arrival, stay and departure of the ship ............ 109 Section 3 – Arrival and departure of persons ................ 135 Page Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traf?c iv Section 4 – Stowaways ................................. 155 Section 5 – Arrival, stay and departure of cargo and other articles ............................ 173 Section 6 – Public heath and quarantine, including sanitary measures for animals and plants ................. 187 Section 7 – Miscellaneous provisions ...................... 191 Page vv Foreword The Convention on the Facilitation of Maritime Traf?c (FAL Convention) was adopted by the International Conference on Facilitation of Maritime Travel and Transport on 9 April 1965. It entered into force on 5 March 1967. The purpose of this Convention is to facilitate maritime transport by simplifying and minimizing the formalities, documentary requirements and procedures associated with the arrival, stay and departure of ships engaged on international voyages. It was originally developed to meet growing international concern about excessive documents required for merchant shipping. Traditionally, large numbers of documents are required by customs, immigration, health and other public authorities pertaining to the ship, its crew and passengers, baggage, cargo and mail. Unnecessary paperwork is a problem in most industries, but the potential for red tape is probably greater in shipping than in other industries, because of its international nature and the traditional acceptance of formalities and procedures. The Convention emphasizes the importance of facilitating maritime traf?c and demonstrates why authorities and operators concerned with documents should adopt the standardized documentation system developed by IMO and recommended by its Assembly for world-wide use. Contracting Parties to the Convention undertake to bring about uniformity and simplicity in the facilitation of international maritime traf?c. The Annex to the Convention contains rules for simplifying formalities, documentary requirements and procedures on the arrival and departure of ships and, in particular, it reduces to nine the number of declarations which can be required by public authorities. These are the General Declaration, Cargo Declaration, Ship’s Stores Declaration, Crew’s Effects Declaration, Crew List, Dangerous Goods Manifest and Passenger List, as well as two documents required under the Universal Postal Convention and the Inter- national Health Regulations. IMO has developed standardized forms for the ?rst seven of these. As a further aid to compliance, the Annex to this Convention contains “Standards” and “Recommended Practices” on formalities, documentary requirements and procedures which should be applied on arrival, during Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traf?c vi their stay, and on departure to the ships, their crews, passengers, baggage and cargo. Amendments to the Convention Although it is recognized that the Convention has made an important contri- bution to the removal of trade barriers, its value was for many years limited by one important drawback – the amendment procedure. This required an amendment to be explicitly accepted by two thirds of Contracting Parties and in practice this took far too long to be practicable. A new procedure known as “tacit acceptance”, under which amendments automatically enter into force on a pre-selected date unless they are speci?cally rejected by one third of the countries which have rati?ed the Convention, entered into force in 1984 (article VII). Early in 1986 the new acceptance procedure was used to adopt further amendments designed primarily to permit the use of automatic data processing and other techniques. These amendments entered into force in October of the same year. The 1990 amendments entered into force on 1 September 1991 and were designed to facilitate the clearance of passengers, including elderly and disabled persons.They also deal with the prevention of unlawful acts against maritime safety and the control of illicit drug traf?cking. The 1992 amendments entered into force on 1 September 1993 and were related to sections concerning the clearance of cargos, passengers, crew and baggage; ships’ arrival and departure requirements and procedures; public health and quarantine, including sanitary measures for animals and plants; and limitation of shipowners’ responsibilities. The amendments introduced new de?nitions of security measures and transport documents as well as new sections on electronic data-processing techniques, private gift packages and trades samples, consular formalities and fees, submission of pre-import information, clearance of specialized equipment and falsi?ed documents. In addition, the Annex to the Convention was restructured by these amendments. The 1996 amendments entered into force on 1 May 1997 and related to sections concerning the contents and purpose of documents; arrival and departure requirements and procedures; facilitation for ships engaged on cruises and for cruise passengers; further measures of facilitation for crew members of ships engaged in international voyages – shore leave; clearance of import cargo; national facilitation committee. The amendments introduced new standards regarding inadmissible persons and a new recommended practice on immigration pre-arrival clearance. Foreword vii The 1999 amendments entered in force on 1 January 2001 and related to sections concerning electronic data-processing techniques; illicit drug traf?cking; contents and purpose of documents on arrival, stay and depar- ture of the ship; arrival and departure of persons; measures to facilitate clear- ance of cargo, passengers, crew and baggage; arrival, stay and departure of cargo and other articles; and clearance of export cargo. The amendments introduced a new chapter on Illicit drug traf?cking and the introduction of using risk assessment to target cargo for examination for limiting physical interventions to the minimum necessary. The 2002 amendments entered in force on 1 May 2003 and related to new de?nitions; and arrival, stay and departure of ships; the amendments intro- duced a new section on stowaways. The 2005 amendments entered in force on 1 November 2006 and related to new de?nitions; general provisions, electronic data-processing techniques; illicit drug traf?cking; control techniques; general in section 2 on arrival, stay and departure of the ship; contents and purpose of documents; documents on departure; completion of documents; errors in documentation and penalties therefore; arrival, stay and departure of cargo and other articles; clearance of cargo; containers and pallets; and emergency assistance. The amendments introduced new de?nitions on Customs clearance, Customs release, Estimated time of arrival, Manifest, Postal items, Ship’s documents and Temporary admission; The amendment created a new section on Control Techniques, and introduced the term “persons rescued at sea” in the section dedicated to Special measures of facilitation for ships calling at ports in order to put ashore sick or injured crew members, passengers or other persons for emergency medical treatment; Finally new IMO FAL Forms were approved. The 2009 amendments entered in force on 15 May 2010 and related to sections concerning contents and purpose of documents; arrival and departure requirements and procedures; measures to facilitate clearance of passengers, crew and baggage; and facilitation for ships engaged on cruises and for cruises passengers. The amendments introduced the text of “voyage number”, and new IMO FAL Forms were approved. The consolidated edition of the Convention also includes the Explanatory Manual to the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traf?c, 1965, as amended (FAL.3/Circ.202 refers). This Manual should assist in inter- preting the legal text of the provisions of the Convention that can be complex and, at times, dif?cult to understand and should provide for a greater under- standing of the Convention, particularly in those Member States which are not presently Contracting Governments to the Convention.