Maritime security hitting its stride?

Several developments south of the border suggest that activity to improve maritime security is finally gathering steam – and coherence – in the U.S. and internationally. In the wake of the much heralded signing of the Safe Port Act by U.S. President George Bush last month, a newly launched global maritime security standard, which goes by the un-mnemonic designation ISO/PAS 28000:2005, may come in for increased attention worldwide. That at least is the view of maritime security specialist Hart Security, as cited in Lloyd’s List last month.

The global standard was published by the International Standards Organisation (ISO) at the end of 2005 and governs the measures an organization must undertake to establish and operate an effective security management system. The standard is compatible with the ISO’s better known and broadly implemented ISO 90001:2000 quality management and ISO 14001:2004 environmental management standards.

“The Safe Port Act rolls up various U.S. shipping and port security regulations into one piece of legislation,” says Hart Security’s managing director of maritime services Simon Falkner in the Lloyd’s List story. “Ports and other international logistics organizations which are concerned about complying with all those regulations could use ISO 28000 accreditation to demonstrate their compliance and flag up the fact that they are taking that very seriously.”

The Lloyd’s List article highlighted an interesting way in which the ISO standard could help reinforce other maritime security regimes. In the case of the ISPS Code, the ISO standard would play a serious supporting role by bringing some discipline and transparency to the process by which a port operator’s head office sets up systems to ensure that ports around the world are actually toeing the line on the ISPS Code security requirements, and not just saying that they are. When port operator DP World announced several weeks ago that it was in compliance with the standard, that accreditation in fact applied to its head office and a single facility – Djibouti Container Terminal in East Africa.

The ISO standard may prove to be useful sooner than anticipated. With their sweeping victory in U.S. Congressional and Senate elections last week, Democratic Party representatives are making noises about implementing 100 percent cargo container screening at point of origin. That goal has so far proved elusive – and been condemned as simply unworkable – but it seems that every time it comes up it’s a little closer to becoming reality.