Shipping and COVID-19: protecting seafarers as frontline workers
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Shipping and COVID-19: protecting seafarers as frontline workers Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry 1 Received: 25 May 2020 / Accepted: 31 August 2020 / Published online: 24 September 2020 # World Maritime University 2020
Abstract The article provides an overview of the impact on and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic on the maritime industry—merchant shipping, the cruise industry and ports as at the end of July 2020. With shipping being responsible for 80% of global trade, the article addresses issues relating to the response of the maritime industry, governments and international organizations to the pandemic. It also addresses the impact of the pandemic on the world’s almost 2 million seafarers who as key workers enable global trade. The article examines the serious challenges seafarers have faced relating to quarantine requirements, restrictions on border crossings with border closures, repatriation and crew changeovers, abandonment, renewals of certificates and licencing of seafarers, resupply and ship surveys. The article includes the response of governments and that of United Nations agencies and in particular the World Health Organization, the International Maritime Organization, the International Labour Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization. The significant role played by the maritime industry in providing substantive guidance is commended. The article concludes that COVID-19 will continue to have a huge impact on the maritime industry and on world trade for the foreseeable future. The expectation is that the industry will hopefully emerge stronger and become more robust to enable world trade to be efficient and sustainable. It is also expected that the pandemic will enable a greater recognition of the world’s seafarers who facilitate world trade, while ensuring a better future for humanity. Keywords Ships including cruise ships . Ports . Crew changovers . Seafarers’ identity
documents convention . Maritime labour convention . Repatriation . Abandonment of seafarers . UN Agencies . Governments . Maritime industry
Seafarers deliver so much for us, we have to deliver for them. Kitack Lim, IMO Secretary-General
* Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry [email protected]
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World Maritime University, Fiskehamnsgatan 1, 211 18 Malmö, Sweden
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Doumbia-Henry C.
1 Introduction The outbreak of COVID-19 in December 2019 has had a devastating impact on the world, sparing no country. The pandemic, a twenty-first century global calamity, is a true reflection of the global economy and global village in which we live. It has led to a total shutdown of the world for months, with over 7 million confirmed cases and more than 511,000 deaths as at 1 July 2020.1 It has affected lives worldwide and has seriously impacted the global economy and the global supply chain, including shipping and the world of work. Shipping is the most global of industries. It is responsible for 80% of world trade and is thus vital to the supply chain. Shipping is the most efficient, reliable and effective means of transport, particularly fo
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