 Welcome, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening from the Stockton Center for International Law at the New U.S. Naval War College. I'm Commander Michael Petta, and I welcome you to our fourth in a recurring Stockton series. Today, we will be discussing a humanitarian crisis, one that is affecting seafarers across the globe. Before we begin that important conversation, I would like to invite some opening remarks from Professor James Kraska, who is the chair and a Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Maritime Law at the Stockton Center and also a lecturer at Harvard Law School. Professor Kraska, the floor is yours, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much, Commander Petta, for putting this together. The Stockton Center for International Law has this monthly webinar series, and we have three lines of effort that we focus on. The first is that we often look at international law in relation to airspace, outer space, and cyberspace. We also focus on international law and armed conflict and humanitarian law. Our third line of effort is international law and maritime operations, including Coast Guard and Naval operations, and Commander Michael Petta is the associate director for that and has put together this webinar. The Stockton Center is within the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College, and the Center for Naval Warfare Studies has a number of other departments, including some that may be known to you, including a Wargaming Department and a prominent China Maritime Studies Institute among some other departments. And Dean Tom Kalora for studies, and I'd like to turn the floor over to you, Dean Kalora. It's an honor for you to be able to be with us today. James, thank you very much. Yes, it's great to be here. I've got a very busy day. I apologize for being a little bit late tying in, but I switched computers from upstairs to downstairs, which is always a challenge at my house. Anyway, as James says, I'm the Dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, and I'm really pleased to see the work that James and Mike and Pete Pedrozo and other folks in the Center, in the Stockton Center are doing in this environment. I first want to welcome folks that have joined us specifically. I know, Admiral Melissa Burt, you're out there, the current Coast Guard Judge Advocate General. I think we have Admiral Fred Kenney also joining us here. I see you on my screen, Admiral. So, welcome to both of you. It's great to have you here. And for all of our partners, I looked at the list of folks that are going to be here. And it's, you know, from Japan, the Philippines, India, and among many, many others. It's important because this is an issue that's touching. This is a global issue that's touching everyone. And I really appreciate you all coming together. I want to put one kudo out to the Stockton Center and to Mike, first to Mike Pedro specifically for hosting this event, how difficult it is to pull everybody together and make this work, but also to let you know that the Stockton Center has actually in some ways increased their outreach in touch in this COVID environment. They didn't just sort of go back to their old model and think about how, you know, what they're missing. They saw the opportunity that Zoom and that teleconferencing and that virtual workshops can bring to, especially these kinds of issues where you want, you want deep expertise, but you also want broad participation. And I think that this, this mechanism has allowed them to do that in a way that's really, in my word, I mean, it's probably not a little exaggeration to say it's a bit eye watering, because I think we've been able to tap into expertise that we probably wouldn't have been able to do if we hadn't used this, this tool in this environment. So while we're in this very difficult environment, most of us are challenged with all kinds of things locally. I really want to applaud the work that James and his team have done. I really think that this particular topic is timely. I can't imagine something that's more salient for, for seafarers, for, for maritime nations, and really the law underpins everything. As I like to say, I'm directly associated with the law, because my oldest daughter is a lawyer in DC, so she keeps me on my toes. And I'm really happy that, that you've all gotten together today. I don't want to take any more of your time. If you want to email me something about this event or you had a comment, please feel free to do that. I'm easy to find on the Naval War College website, my last name, C-U-L-O-R-A. I popped right up. I'm the only one there, and my email is right there, so I'll be happy to hear from any of you. I'm going to watch in background a little bit, because I've got another thing I'm sort of monitoring, but I want to try to stay here until at least noon and listen in on the conversation. I think it'll be fascinating. And good luck for a great afternoon. Thank you, Dean. Thank you, Professor Kraska. And for the audience, what you'll find I'm sure today listening to our speakers is that this crisis is a bit complicated, but our purpose for this webinar is not. It's simple. And that is to increase awareness of the crisis, of its potential ramifications on maritime trade, and what is being done internationally, both from a governance and a diplomatic perspective, to mitigate what's happening. And we're fortunate to have three distinguished maritime leaders with us to facilitate the conversation. Admiral Fred Kenney is the Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations with the International Maritime Organization. Mr. Doug Stevenson is the Director of Seafare's Rights at the Siemens Church Institute, although in his very modest fashion he'll let everyone know that he is recently retired. And then we also have with us Mr. Brian Wilson, who is the Deputy Director of the U.S. Maritime Operations Threat and Response Coordination Center. The format for today's discussion is also relatively simple. Mr. Wilson, our moderator, will further introduce both the topic and our panelists. He will go through a set of questions to build dialogue and context around the matter, and then he'll open the floor to questions to you, our audience. Before I turn it over to Mr. Wilson, I'd just like to knock out two housekeeping matters. First, the chat feature is disabled in this webinar, so you will ask and upvote questions using the Q&A feature, which is down to the bottom of the screen. And then for some reason you get cut off today and you can't participate in the entire webinar. You can access it via the U.S. Naval War College's YouTube channel, and it's easy to find. Just go to YouTube and search for U.S. Naval War College, and you'll get to our site. So with no further ado, Mr. Wilson, I turn the floor to you. Thanks very much, Professor Dean, distinguished guests, including the panelists. It's an honor and a privilege to support this discussion, which we hope in a webinar format is as interactive as we can be. And this is an important topic that has been a focus area at both the International Maritime Organization and at the United Nations. And we really do have two of the most distinguished and uniquely qualified panelists to have this type of discussion. We're going to explore what is unique about the current environment, why has it been so challenging for both the mariners, maritime trade, and how does that impact on law of the sea convention? What is the intersection, but ultimately what is the complexity of crewing, of seafarers? And I'd like to reiterate what Commander just stated on the questions. You are a key part. The participants on this webinar are a key part of our interactive discussion, and your questions, your upvoting will be an essential element of why this is effective and why this will be beneficial. I'm going to give a little bit of background, but I do want to leave the floor for our two wonderful panelists. A little bit of background is in October. So earlier this month, the United Nations called the situation of seafarers an unparalleled crisis. The timing could not have been more important and better for the Stockton Center. So thank you. Thank you for raising this visibility that United Nations calling that document, that statement called on the business sector, it called on others involved in the shipping industry to do more, to do more to address the plight of seafarers worldwide. And we really couldn't have this discussion without Admiral Kenny on the line. Thank you and IMO, International Maritime Organization in September. So last month asserted that the maritime and the shipping sector was facing a humanitarian crisis and it urged, urged that actions be taken. And what was unique about that document, and I would encourage you to read it. And I suspect one of our panelists was largely involved in this. It had more than a dozen action items. It didn't just state there is a problem. It had very detailed recommendations for countries to consider, for private sector to consider. It's an exceptional document and it importantly prioritized the sacrifice of seafarers. And when we have this discussion, we can look to law to sea. We can look to legal authorities, state sovereignty, role of a flag state, but ultimately this is about the seafarer. And the International Maritime Organization and that exceptional document, circular note is the terminology they use. In that note, it was an exceptional document that did talk about what nations can do differently, but importantly, about the role of seafarers. And that we owe a great debt of great debt to seafarers for maintaining the supply chains throughout this pandemic. And I think not losing sight of that was important. The United Nations similarly asserted correctly that the world could not function without the efforts of seafarers, yet their contributions go largely unheralded. And they deserve far greater support at any time, but especially now. So when we are looking at some of the issues that are involved in this complexity, one of which is safety. What is the impact not just on a humanitarian basis, but on ships? And Admiral Kenny was recently quoted about the complexity of the crew changing. And that is a normal event in a pre-COVID environment of numbers may vary, but somewhere near 100,000 per month, that it occurs naturally with challenges. But with COVID, that crew change, those turnovers, those transitions have been significantly challenged and significantly constrained. And with hundreds of thousands of seafarers, we need to look at what are the authorities? What are the business sectors? What more can we do to improve both the plight of the seafarer and safety, security, the entirety of that spectrum? And what are the lessons? And it may be a bit early, but I think that we are mindful of what could we have known? What authorities that exist today are sufficient? Where is it inadequate? And what more can be done from a collaborative perspective? Again, encourage you to ask questions. And we do have two of the most uniquely qualified panelists. Thank you to the Stockton Center for the privilege of supporting these discussions. And I'd like to turn it over now to our panelists. Admiral Kenny. Thank you, Brian. And good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Oh, I realized I'm muted. Sorry. Good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening. Wherever you may be. It's really a pleasure to be here. And I really appreciate the Naval War College and your efforts to put this webinar on. As was mentioned earlier, the opportunity for outreach is really important. I want to go back to something that Dean Kalora said in his opening remarks that this is a crisis. And that was echoed by Brian, and it really is a global crisis on three levels. First, it is a humanitarian crisis, and we'll get into the more of the details as to why that is in the course of this webinar. Second, it is a potential safety crisis. We have overly fatigued seafarers operating very large, very complex merchant vessels right now. And that can't continue. And third, it is a potential grave economic crisis because if shipping stops, the global economy stops as well. So just to give you a little background on where we are with the situation, there are roughly 70,000 merchant vessels plying trade right now in the world. Those vessels carry between 80 and 90 percent of the world's goods at some point in the supply chain. You'll get different numbers as to what the percentage is, but it is a vast percentage of the goods that flow in the world economy, including food, medical supplies, and the other materials needed to both respond to the pandemic and recover from it. Those 70,000 ships are operated and crewed by approximately 1.8 million seafarers. Now, as Brian said, changing out the crew is a regular operation for a merchant vessel. Most merchant mariners have contracts that last between three and 11 months. In a normal month, pre-COVID, about 125,000 seafarers would leave their ships as their contracts expired and another 125,000 would join ships. Now, of course, the crews don't change out all at once on a ship. The average size of the crew on a merchant vessel is between 20 and 30 people and you might do five, six, ten at a time. For the ship operating company, ship management companies, crew change is actually a very complicated, logistical operation, arranging for flights, arranging for visas, arranging to get repatriation, arranging for if an urgent family situation comes up, getting a person home, getting a person onto the ship. So, it is a complicated ballet in normal circumstances. As I said at the beginning of the pandemic, it was about 125,000 seafarers that were ready to go off in the month of March. But with the pandemic and with countries closing their borders, that number quickly started to grow because ships were going into ports and they could not change out their crews. That number grew to about 200,000 in May. It was over 300,000 in July and now we're seeing a situation where we have upwards of 400,000 seafarers who are essentially trapped on their ships and cannot get off. We have another 400,000 who can't work and are unable to get to their ships to join the crew. As I mentioned, there's about 1.8 million seafarers. You can see that nearly half of the workforce is being affected by the pandemic and by this crew change crisis. Of course, this cannot continue indefinitely. We'll be talking more about specific things that have gone on during this webinar, but the situation that we face right now is we are making progress. We'll talk more about that, I think, through the course of this webinar. Progress is being made on crew changes, but that progress is not keeping up with the rise in the backlog. This is where we need to find solutions. I'll stop there, Brian. Thanks so much, Admiral, for a perfect overview of some of the challenges and some of the work that the international organization has done to address this crisis. Doug, could I pivot to you? I'd like to ask you as a follow-up to Admiral Kenny's general description of where we are at right now. Could you provide a short anecdote or vignette to help participants in this webinar to understand real-world challenges that seafarers are facing without the ability to travel, leave their vessel? I'll turn it over to you, and thanks again for joining this discussion. Thank you, Brian. I'd be happy to. But before, I think probably a lot of people are not familiar with, say, the Seaman Church Institute or what maritime ministries do. In the maritime world, almost every port has a Seaman's Church. This is part of the maritime industry, and the Seaman's Church Institute of New York is one of those. We have programs of hospitality where our chaplains visit ships and talk to seafarers. And quite frankly, they probably know more about life on a ship than anybody but seafarers themselves because seafarers confide in, have training facilities. And the third area of our work is what I worked on for 29 years was the Worldwide Advocacy Program, where we provide free legal aid and assistance to merchant mariners worldwide. Like Commander Pettus said, I retired recently about a year ago, but since my successor isn't going to come on board until next month, I've been kind of keeping the program going, so working part-time. I'd also like to mention one other thing that's maybe of interest to you at the Naval War College. Actually, the Seaman's Church has something in common with the Naval War College. And that commonality is Alfred Therma Han, you know, who is one of the greatest naval strategists producing the United States. He was president of the Naval War College, but he was also on the board of Seaman's Church Institute for more than 47 years. And as you all know, his big strategy keeping sea lanes open for communication as being the most critical part of our nation's or any nation's prosperity. And in his time, the biggest threat to the sea lanes of communication were other navies. Today, that's not the case. Today, the biggest threat to maritime security, to keeping the lines of communication open is recruiting and retaining sufficient number of seafarers to operate the vessels needed for commerce. And so it's in not just the United States interests, but the interests of every country in the world, because as Ed McKinney said, every country in the world depends on shipping. Whether you're in Mongolia or the United States or anywhere else, we all have an obligation or responsibility to make seagoing careers attractive options for skilled men and women. But before I go on, I have to mention a couple of things about Fred Kenny. I've worked with him for many years. And I know that Fred is a guy who understands the importance of making seagoing careers attractive options. I'll give you two examples that when Fred was Chief Counsel of the Coast Guard, one of the first things that he did was to change a legal opinion of the Coast Guard that facilitated seafarers to go ashore in U.S. terminals. It was a huge, huge difference in their in seafarers job satisfaction. And the other thing that Fred did was he, you got legislation passed in the United States that protected seafarers from abandonment, setting up a fund and a program for abandonment. So I just thought I'd mention that about Fred and give my congratulations for that. Now, yeah, that's an example. Now, we've all heard cases of seafarers being delayed from their contracts, serving on board for 15 and plus months, missing family events, weddings, funerals, graduations. I'd like to give you another little example that, not a little example, an example that maybe you haven't heard so much about last June. And by the way, I am getting reports from our port chaplains and from our port chaplains, conversations to seafarers, just from the Siemens Church Institute in New York. I'm sure that there are many, many more chaplains around the world hearing similar stories from seafarers. But in this case, Filipinos see, by the way, whether they, the facts, you know, the conditions in some places, it doesn't really matter. It's what the seafarers believe is happening because there are problems of communication and changing policies. So I will just only report what the seafarers have reported to us. But anyway, last June, there was a seafarer on a tanker who was suffering from some gastrointestinal problems. It was, you know, not totally debilitating, but, you know, serious enough where he was in pain and discomfort a lot. And the shipboard medicines weren't doing anything to help him. So when the vessel arrived in Amsterdam, he requested to go ashore to see a doctor. And he was told that for him to go ashore, he would have to quarantine for 14 days. And the ship was due to leave in three days. So the decision that the seafarer had to make was, does he go ashore, get medical care, get treatment, and thereby lose his job? And not only would he lose his job, but then the complications of getting home back in June were significant. There were very few international flights. And once he got to Manila, he would have to be quarantined in Manila for five days, and then have to go to his hometown and quarantine away from his family and friends for 14 days before he could even see his family. And the other complication was once home, would he be able to get another job and get back on the ship? So his decision was, which wasn't, I mean, it wasn't an easy decision. I mean, this is the problem that seafarers have, that even though there may be a possibility of repatriation, isn't a reasonable decision. And so therefore, he stayed on the ship, suffered for two more months, when his finally, his symptoms subsided somewhat, and he was repatriated last month in September. But as Fred mentioned, this, during that two month period when he was sick, he wasn't operating to his full capacity. And not only was it a problem for that seafarer, but also for the seafarer, he wasn't operating to his full capacity. And not only was it a problem for that seafarer, it was a problem for the safety and effectiveness of that vessel. Thank you. Thanks very much for that fantastic background on your organization, as well as the difficult choices that are unfortunately confronting mariners. I too have a debt of gratitude to Admiral Kenny, who when he was in the United States Coast Guard created an office dedicated to collaboration within the government. And while a process existed, it has continuing relevance and resonance that a dedicated office was created. And Admiral Kenny was a catalyst behind that creation. And so I would like to thank him, and that office still exists, and that is currently where I work. And that those, those importance about collaboration and importance of our front and center with a lot of the challenges today. Pivoting to Admiral Kenny, you did talk about this in your opening remarks about the humanitarian crisis, but it creates other concerns as you did note. Could you explain how some of the crisis is impacting safety? And we did hear about fatigue that you did mention. We did talk about global supply chains that you did mention. If I could ask you to just indulge and expand on that a bit, Admiral. Sure. And thanks and thanks both to you and Doug for the kind words. I wasn't expecting that, but that's okay. Let's talk about seafarers. As I mentioned, this is a crisis on three levels. The humanitarian crisis is very real. I think Doug raised an important point by mentioning the real problems we've been seeing in getting seafarers access to medical care. The story he, he told is very compelling. We've seen many, many others that are really quite frankly, they're horrifying. But some of the decisions that have been made by some governments during the pandemic have led to these, these types of crisis situations. The safety issues are very real. The maritime labor convention says that seafarer contracts should not extend past 12 months. So 11 months is the normal max. We are routinely at the IMO now receiving reports of seafarers that have been on board their ships continuously for more than 18 months. Now I know there's a lot of seafarers and mariners that are on this webinar now. I know that when I was at sea, the longest I was gone was for six months. And I can tell you that I was so happy to get off that ship at the end of the six month deployment. But imagine being on board for 18 months continuously without being able to go home and without knowing when you're going to get home to your family. Think about the mental stress that that would create. Think about the physical drain. As I mentioned, the crew on a merchant vessel averages between 20 and 30 people. They're, they're very minimally manned. It is a seven day a week job, normally working eight hours a day. Ships today are very technically complex. They're also potentially dangerous workplaces. You have to be mentally sharp. You have to be physically rested. And these seafarers are worn down. And we're very concerned at the IMO that we're going to start seeing a rise in casualties. Now to their credit, seafarers, despite all these challenges, have continued to serve very professionally and continued to deliver for the world economy. That actually might be part of the problem is that it is invisible to many decision makers, politicians. It's invisible to the general public because they're still getting their food. They're still getting their medical supplies. But the fact of the matter is, is that seafarers cannot remain on board their vessels forever. They have to be changed out. And if they're not changed out, it is going to create a ripple effect where ships are either going to be no longer safe to operate because they have overly fatigued seafarers. Or there is at some point, there's going to be a potential for a work stoppage. And the impacts on the economies of the world will be significant and likely immediate. I'd ask you to think back to the longshore strikes in the port of Los Angeles, Long Beach, back in 2002, and then the second one in 2012. The impacts on the American economy as a result of those longshore strikes were almost immediate. To the point where in the 2002 labor strike, President Bush himself had to intervene in order to try to resolve the crisis because the impacts on the economy were getting significant. If globally, ships are unable to operate because there are not rested trained crews available to operate them, we will start seeing similar effects globally. We haven't seen much yet. We haven't seen a significant rise in casualties, although there have been some casualties reported that there are some allegations that they may be related to the pandemic. For example, the Waukesha casualty off the coast of Mauritius that resulted in a significant bunker spill on a very sensitive coral reef. While the casualty investigation is ongoing in that case, one thing is known is that a number of the crew on that vessel were operating on expired contracts. I really can't understate the threats that this poses globally and the need for solutions to be found. I'll stop there for now. Thanks. Can I ask one very brief follow-up, Admiral, to what you stated? The situation involving Mariners has uniquely, and the International Maritime Organization has acknowledged this, competing challenges, competing considerations. In addition to the IMO circular, what have you experienced when we're dealing with both a port, defining a port, state sovereignty, the legal underpinnings along with the tremendous policy considerations from international health regulations that you mentioned, flag state authorities, and the port state and sovereignty? What have you seen when you talk to member states and other organizations as some of the legal issues to overcome and reconcile some of those competing considerations that are coming together? That is a great question, Brian. Thanks for asking that because that is a point that I did want to make. One of my real concerns through this pandemic is the abrogation of international treaty law by countries in the name of public health concerns. The Maritime Labor Convention, as I said, CFERR, which is an international labor organization convention, not an IMO convention, but it's very much intertwined with the IMO suite of treaties, particularly the STCW convention. CFERRs aren't supposed to be at sea for more than 12 months, and as I said, we're seeing flag states allowing for the extension of contracts. Thankfully, we have seen some of the major flag states put the brakes on that recently. Panama in August announced that ships flying the Panamanian flag could no longer extend contracts, which was very welcome news. But we're seeing the Maritime Labor Convention provisions being bypassed and ignored. We're seeing state responsibilities, coastal state responsibilities under the International Convention on Search and Rescue and the Solace Convention being ignored when CFERRs are being denied medical care and being denied medical evacuation because of the threat that they might bring COVID into a port. We worked on a situation back in June where a Russian CFERR had suffered a major stroke and he was refused a medevac. And we had to intervene at the IMO. We had to intervene at a fairly high diplomatic level in order to get that medevac to occur. It delayed his medevac by 12 hours. Thankfully, the CFERR recovered and he's doing well. But this was a coastal state knowing what their obligations were under the SAR Convention and putting public health concerns over it. Now, I recognize that this is a difficult balance on a number of levels for flag port and coastal states. It has political implications. But what we're calling for at the IMO is for countries to recognize the special status that CFERRs have and take that into consideration before making really knee-jerk arbitrary decisions affecting the entire population that could have significant additional impacts on CFERRs. Thanks very much, Admiral. And I would encourage participants to type in questions. And as we stated at the beginning of this discussion, we hope interactive webinar, so it's a little bit of a hybrid that we're not just going to hear those speaking and presenting. I'd like to pivot back to Doug. Can you talk about another example in so far as how the current situation is affecting CFERR employment agreements and CFERR pay? You gave an exceptional example of someone who had to make that terribly difficult decision between getting paid in medical treatment. Could you expand again with another example that may be instructive to highlight some of the challenges? Well, thank you, Brian. Before I go, I would like to add one more thing to what Admiral Kenny just said. And that is there's also a provision of the Maritime Labor Convention that obligates port states who are signatory to the convention to facilitate repatriation of crews in their ports. And that's another area that's not being adhered to. As far as CFERR contracts and repatriation, maybe a lot of people don't understand how CFERRs are employed today. Hardly any CFERRs work on ships that fly the flag of their nationality. Ship owners hire CFERRs directly. Rather, they hire CFERRs from countries that have well-trained and low-cost CFERRs through recruiting and recruiting agencies. So for a CFERR, the big obligation that CFERR has is more to the recruiting agency rather than to the ship owner. Because typically a CFERR will work on a contract, go home, then go to his agency to get another contract. Now, how has this affected CFERRs today? Well, quite frankly, we haven't heard of CFERRs not being paid because they're extended contracts. Maritime law requires that if there's not a new contract, the previous one continue. But some of the problems that are occurring though are CFERRs who go home are having a hard time getting back to a ship because of restrictions at home. Let me give you an example. If you are a CFERR in the Philippines, which produces more CFERRs than any other country in the world and you live in one of the provinces, how are you going to get to Manila when there's no domestic flights available? So what's happening then are CFERRs from the outlying provinces, they're getting off their ships, they're staying a few days in Manila and instead of taking that much needed time off, they're trying to get back on a ship as soon as possible because they don't know when they'll ever get hired again. So adding to those problems that Fred so adequately described is you're getting tired CFERRs going home after a very difficult trip home. I mean, you don't have so many direct flights anywhere anymore today. And then immediately going back on a ship probably for another at least 10 months or a year. So it is a significant problem in how effective and efficient the CFERRs are. The stresses, the fatigue, the worry. I mean, can you imagine you're going home but you're not even going home to see your family. And you may be afraid to go there because maybe the risks of COVID are more dangerous back in your little village than they are on the ship. So CFERRs are being forced to make very unsatisfactory choices. I'll leave it at that. Thanks Doug. I'd like to go to one of the questions that one of our participants asked which we can start at the top from Professor Tard. Have there been cooperative efforts or initiatives on the part of some states to ease restrictions that you are aware of? And certainly the context is we've seen ports sign statements committing to sharing information and collaborating in response. But if we've seen a similar like instrument, cooperative efforts, agreement to ease the restrictions, can we point to examples? In your experience, I could ask both, but we can start with Admiral Kenny. Are you aware of anything that is a good response? Yeah, there's a couple of examples. First, you mentioned the IMO resolution that was adopted in September, which is Maritime Safety Committee resolution 473. One of the things that that resolution calls on is for all states to implement protocols that were developed jointly with the industry and some key governments that will allow for safe crew changes in a consistent manner around the world. And those protocols have also been distributed by the IMO. There may be action taken to adopt those as IMO guidelines in the near future. There is some intersessional work going on on that right now in the Maritime Safety Committee that's being led by the UK. The protocols are in the circular letter 4204 series, it's 4204 add 14. And they provide a good framework globally. Regionally, we've seen some good efforts. The EU, for example, has its green lanes initiative, which originally was for trucks, but they extended it to ships as well that allow for facilitated crew changes in EU countries, although it's up to each EU country to adopt it individually with varying degrees depending on the country you're talking about. There have been some countries that have just been really outstanding. The UK, as I mentioned, has been one. They were one of the first countries to designate seafarers as key workers and allow for free crew changes. Panama is now allowing free crew changes for ships transiting the canal, and it's becoming, it is more and more becoming a hub for crew changes. Singapore has developed very good procedures. Implementation has been somewhat of an issue because they're very strict in Singapore about the criteria to allow a crew change, but in terms of policy development, they've been outstanding. So as I said, there's a lot of good work being done, but the pace of it isn't keeping up with the backlog. In respect to the IMO protocols, there's more than 50 countries that have adopted the protocols and are implementing them, but each country has its own unique challenges with implementation of the protocols that goes largely to how communications work domestically and how interagency communications work domestically. We have a very large US audience here, and many of you have been involved in the US interagency, and I think we know how that works. Think about that in 175 different, 192 different countries around the world and what those interagency dynamics might be, and you get a situation where each country has a unique set of issues that they have to overcome in order to facilitate crew changes and keep their economy moving. It's not easy. Thanks, Admiral. Can I ask you a very brief follow on is what are the legal implications of designating mariners as key workers that you mentioned that there are some positive examples that what's the legal benefit of such a designation? In many countries, in response to the pandemic, they provide exceptions with respect to travel and transit for key workers, truck drivers, medical personnel, other service personnel. The issue with seafarers is those people that I just mentioned before are probably your nationals. As Doug alluded to, most seafaring is an international endeavor. You'll have a ship flagged in one country that is flagged in Panama, that's owned in Japan, that is the officers are from India, the crew is from Indonesia, the operating company is in Cyprus. So you have this big global stew and for an individual country to designate those seafarers that are not their nationals as key workers requires some political will and political effort that is more difficult than designating one of your truck drivers as an essential worker. One of the things that we're hoping to see is there are efforts being made to adopt a UN General Assembly resolution that would also call on countries to designate seafarers as key workers and there's efforts going on in the General Assembly right now for that and we're very encouraged by that. Thanks very much. Doug, I'd like to ask you a question from one of our participants on the line and it referenced a study from 2019 that found alarming rates of depression and anxiety based on study more than 1500 seafarers that were surveyed. Either do you have either anecdotally or have you seen surveys coming out regarding the impact of the extended stays? In addition, we talked about fatigue, we talked about some of the medical issues, have you seen surveys regarding depression and anxiety? Thank you, Ryan. Very good question. You know, back in 2009, the Siemens Church Institute, we did a mental health clinical study of seafarers being affected by piracy and what we found at that time was, ironically, I mean, surprisingly, not only were there no occupational health studies on seafarers' mental health, there weren't any occupational health studies on seafarers' period in the scientific literature and so we actually have been very, very involved with seafarers' mental health since then, including doing training in suicide prevention, etc. But one of the, you know, the interesting things which will come as no surprise to anyone who has been on a ship is that seafarers are tough, independent people and they don't want to go to a shrink. You know, they can take care of their own problems or self-medicate their own problems and mental health, it was a pretty significant stigma even though mental health therapies are among the most successful therapies in medicine. Most mental health problems and 25% of the world's population will have a mental health problem sometime in their life. And so, but what's interesting now is that when our chaplains go aboard ships or when we talk to them ashore their seafarers enter, they are talking about, wouldn't talk about before, they're concerned about their mental health, which I take as a very positive sign that there's a recognition that seafarers like anyone else can have mental health problems and there's also an understanding that there are effective therapies for them, like any other illness. And so what we've been trying to do has been to diminish that stigma and to get the mental health therapies that are available, if they are available. You know, Fred also talked about seafarers not being able to go ashore to get therapies or to get medical care and that continues to be a problem. I'll give you one quick anecdote. One of our chaplains said that sometimes seafarers will shake hands, but a lot of times now they won't let go. You know, it's like the need for like human contact. When you're on a ship, let's say for 10 months, it's not just that you're on a ship for 10 months. On Monday I was talking to an Indian officer on a ship who joined the ship, his ship in July. He had been to, his ship had been to several European ports, some North African ports. He talked to me at our seafarer center. That was the first time he had been off the ship since July because he wasn't allowed shore leave in any other port. Shore leave is extraordinarily important for seafarers' mental health. That's why I was thanking Fred for what he did for shore leave in American terminals. But seafarers, I'm told that seafarers cannot go ashore in Europe. We've been doing shore leave surveys at Siemens Church since 2001, primarily because the criticism the United States has had over a denial or lack of shore leave opportunities in the United States. These surveys pretty much dispelled the problem. There are, you know, 10% who didn't get ashore. But ironically now, it's one of the few places seafarers can go ashore and be repatriated because our presidential proclamations have excluded seafarers from their travel restrictions for COVID-19. Thanks. Thanks. Have you examined the impact of the internet and having an ability to talk with families every day? And the unique challenges that that poses when you can't leave a vessel and yet you're drawn into family challenges, medical issues, bills, and the distance may be unfortunately even greater. Have you looked at that from your perspective? Well, absolutely. That has been a big topic in the in poor chaplaincies around the world. And you know, this discussion is a few years ago was, well, we can't let seafarers know what's going on at home because it'll disrupt their, their, you know, workability on the ship. Well, you know, today's seafarers, we were talking about making seafaring an occupation that's attractive to skilled people. Today's entrance into the employment market, they view access to the internet as a human right, pretty close to human right. And when the maritime labor convention was adopted, you know, and it was finished in 2005, adopted in 2006, you know, it was a different world on the internet. So there's no protections there, although they all assume that. Some ships provide some degree of internet access at sea, which is great. Seafarers need that. Seafers are worried about what's happening at home, what's happening with their families. They're worried about keeping in touch with, with their friends. And internet access is extraordinarily important. One of the things that we provide in port, though, is that we provide internet access to seafarers who, who don't have it on their ships. So they can either, there's many different ways we do that at our port and other ports, maritime ministries around the world. So yeah, something that maritime ministry has been looking at for several years now. Thanks very much, Doug. We could pivot to Admiral Kenny. We've mentioned several different legal authorities and legal sources, including many from the International Maritime Organization, the Law of the Sea Convention, there's some search and rescue instruments, human rights instruments. What do you see as the primary legal sources? Because in a webinar, we do want to see what, what exists, what may be sufficient or inadequate. You mentioned with prominence the, the SCDW, the standards for training certification and watchkeeping for seafarers. In addition to port state authorities, sovereignty, maritime labor convention, in your position as the, the senior legal advisor at the International Maritime Organization, how do you see is what, what is part of that conversation when a port state or flag state is confronted with a stranded mariner that, that you've seen are the, the absolute source documents that, that really are the foundation for a discussion. Thanks, Brian. As I said, one of my concerns is, is that the, the rule of international maritime law is being eroded as a result of this, of this pandemic. And you mentioned the authorities, when you look at STCW and the certification requirements, at the beginning of the pandemic, the IMO did urge that member states take a practical and pragmatic approach with, with respect to the exploration of seafarer certificates on board vessels. In the expectation of the, there might need to be short extensions so that once a seafarer was repatriated, they could get the necessary quals they needed to, to renew their certificate. What we're seeing now is seafarers whose certificates have now been extended for nine, 10, 11 months, far beyond what anyone expected. We had a very detailed set of negotiations with the industry and led by the International Association of Classification Societies, with respect to extensions of safety certificates, of environmental certificates under marples, safety certificates under solace, load lines, etc. And the, the Secretary General's big point there was, in the first instance, the regulations should be complied with. And exceptions should only be granted in, when there's no other option. What this has led to actually is, is some encouraging innovations in terms of remote surveys, if they can be done in a way that it ensures the same level of safety. But, you know, seafarer certificates can't be extended indefinitely. Seafarers contracts can't be extended indefinitely. You can't unilaterally deny medical care to a seafarer in distress on a merchant vessel. So these treaty obligations have to be kept in mind when making the difficult decisions that need to be made in order to protect public health and safety. And what we at the IMO are saying is those decisions should come down on the side of the seafarer. Thanks very much. And for your, your personal interventions and continued leadership on, on this issue, can you expand on something that you mentioned very briefly and at the offset of your, your discussions about the seafarer crisis action team and the designation of key workers, which, which we have talked about, but what are some of the, the hurdles, what are some of the good, good collaborative engagements that you've experienced over the past couple of months? Because this is, it's been ongoing for several months, as we all know. Sure. And as, as the, the seafarer crew change crisis began to unfold, the Secretary-General established the seafarer crisis action team, which I am honored to chair. It's, it's, it's primarily an internal IMO group, but we work with both our UN interagency and industry partners on this, in particular, the International Labor Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Chamber of Shipping, the International Transport Workers Federation. And one, one of the good things that has, has come out of this is the level of cooperation and collaboration both inside the UN and amongst the industry is really unprecedented and very positive to see labor and ship owners working as closely together as they are now. The Secretary-General of the ITF and the Secretary-General of ICS talk two or three times a day. I usually talk to them once every day or two. And it, this is a true team effort and not one that you would have expected would have occurred a year ago. So that's encouraging. The seafarers crisis action team really has three prime mandates. First, we work on individual cases. The IMO and the ILO have received literally probably thousands of complaints now and issues that have been raised by individual seafarers. Some of those rise to the level where they can only be resolved through diplomatic action and that's where the IMO comes in. We do intervene diplomatically to try to resolve the cases. It's somewhat of a motor for seafarers. But one of the things that's interesting is the IMO is in the vast majority a regulatory development agency. It does not have an operational arm. This pandemic has forced us to become more operational. And that may be something that will need to be considered by the member states in the future as to how we maintain and potentially expand that. The second area where we work is in the policy development, such as in encouraging the protocols. The IMO has put out a vast array of guidance on how shipping should deal with the pandemic. It's available on the IMO website. There's a plethora of material there. If you go to the IMO website, there's a big red banner at the top. If you click on it, you come to it. Unfortunately, if you do that right now, I think we're having some technical issues with our website today. So you may not be able to get at it. But it's normally there. And then third, we're working at the diplomatic level. We're conducting a series of bilateral negotiations with member states to try to encourage them to eliminate the barriers that they have individually with crew changes. We're working at the multinational level talking about developing the Maritime Safety Committee resolution and other resolutions. And then third, we've made significant efforts with respect to outreach. Normaling shipping is an invisible industry. And quite frankly, there are big segments of the shipping industry who like it that way. They don't want to be in the papers. But this crisis is not going to be solved unless we reach the appropriate decision makers who and make them aware of what the situation is so that that person in the Ministry of Health will say, okay, we'll make an exception for seafarers. Very difficult to do. The outreach efforts have been quite successful. We're seeing coverage of the seafarer crisis in outlets that we never really paid attention to shipping before the Wall Street Journal has taken it on. I did an interview for the New York Times about a month ago, CNN, BBC. And they're all committed to this. And we've really appreciated that support. What we need to see now is results. We need to see that backlog diminishing. And we're not there yet. So we have to continue pushing. Thanks very much, Admiral. Doug, could we talk about for a moment, two-part question for you. One is, we mentioned earlier about designation of status as a key worker. And if you have any personal experience from seafarers that you've talked to about that beneficial impact. And secondly, what would you see are data points that would be we are turning the corner? Because you both, Admiral and yourself, have made multiple references that were not there yet. What would you see from a seafarer perspective as a positive sign, either in policy response or regulatory or legal, from your vantage point? Thank you, Brian. As far as the United States goes, we haven't specifically said seafarers have not been deciding special designation. However, as I alluded to earlier, the presidential proclamations that do limit access to the United States because of COVID do exclude seafarers for shore leave and for crew changes from the restrictions. So seafarers do have an ability to go ashore and to have crew changes in the United States. Their own rules, which creates some complications for seafarers. For example, when seafarers come ashore at the Port of New York, our seafarer center is in New Jersey. New Jersey doesn't require them to be quarantined. But New York does, so they cannot go to New York. So that makes it a bit complicated in that respect. What was the second part? Ryan, I'm sorry. Sure. What are positive data points that you would see from your perspective as an advocate for seafarers in the COVID environment? Sorry. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. I have seen some positive things. Certainly, as Fred said, we're not around. We're not there yet. One thing, the lack of international flights has caused some shipping companies to collaborate and coordinate in chartering flights to get seafarers home. So that's a positive sign. Some countries didn't allow any international flights going into their countries. For example, India and the Philippines are very difficult for seafarers to go home. That seems to be easing up now. So there are still continuing problems. For example, as I mentioned earlier in the Philippines, you can get to Manila, but you can't go home because they don't have domestic flights. So there's a way to go. Those are a couple examples where I've seen also, for example, here in New Jersey, when COVID first started, seafarers were not allowed to go ashore. Because there's no, I mean, they could go for a legal reason. You'll see VP Customs and Border Protection would authorize shorely. But there was no place for them to go because there are no stores open. Our governor's order closed our seafarer center. Now, more and more stores are open. So our chaplains are visiting ships. The seafarers are getting ashore. It seems now that the biggest restrictions on shorely for seafarers are not caused by any immigration law, but rather by shipowners or masters concerns about the safety and health of their own crew members and not wanting them to get out of the safe bubble of the ship where there is no COVID. So that's been the biggest restriction so far. Thanks very much. Doug, if I could follow up with one more question. When you talk to or someone in your organization may engage with port states, flag states, are there one or two or three key themes that resonate for the protection of seafarers? Because we've talked about a variety of different issues, but is there one or two that you like to emphasize when you engage with port officials and governments? Well, yeah. I mean, working for a church organization, I long ago learned that the argument that you should be nice to seafarer because the Bible tells you so isn't the most effective argument with a lot of people. But as I mentioned earlier, and as Fred talked about also, we all know that the prosperity of nations depends on shipping. Shipping depends on skilled workers, skilled seafarers, reliable skilled people. There's a real problem of making that career choice an attractive one. So I try to emphasize the importance of every country. Whether you're a port state that doesn't have seafarers, you should understand that what you do for or against seafarers in your port affects your prosperity because it makes that job of a seafaring job a less attractive option for the kind of people we need on ships. And when I was going to pre-COVID conferences, around the maritime world, the biggest topic they most were talking about was the recruiting and retention crisis. Of course, that fits exactly with the crew change crisis because that does definitely affect the job satisfaction. Thanks so much. Great reply. Thank you. Admiral, you had mentioned earlier about diplomatic engagements from your perspective as the International Maritime Organization. Could you walk through what exactly that means when you engage with a nation? From who within your organization? What is asked and how you may follow up on that? But what goes into a diplomatic engagement and what does that mean? Okay, great. I'm sure. And I would say that the ILO is making efforts that are similar to the IMO because they're, the key people that they deal with is slightly different than the people that we deal with. So we're able to take a multi-pronged approach with a particular country. So what we have done is first, we study what the issue is in each country. And I will say that the issue in one country is usually different than the issue in another country. As Doug mentioned, it might be lack of flights. It might be that the ports are closed for transit. It might be that they have visa restrictions that apply to seafarers that shouldn't. And these are things that involve maybe a multi-ministry approach. So what our bilaterals, and I don't include the ones that I might do or some of our staff might do, the bilaterals, I'm speaking, are of our very high level bilaterals that our Secretary General conducts. And a lot of preparation will go into those meetings and we'll be working with that government in advance. What I see is the benefit of them is that when a minister of transport or a prime minister or a minister of health is meeting with our Secretary General, they generally want to come in with some good news. And so actually the meeting itself might not all be all that substantive, but the lead up to it leads to progress. It's something that I guess I hadn't seen much in my career, but when we got the hang of how to do these, it actually is a very effective tool. And so how we choose the countries, how we choose the issues that we're going to address with them is very carefully planned and executed. And as I said, we are seeing progress. Doug alluded to some that we're seeing and, you know, for example, the situation in India is markedly better than it was back in June. The Philippines, while it has issues, it's also made great strides and it's trying to become a leader in terms of policy and procedure development in terms of facilitating crude changes and they would like to become a global hub. That's one of the other issues is that the industry also needs to adapt because there are some countries that just seem to have intractable problems and they, shipping routes may need change. For example, companies have a very difficult time doing crude changes in South Africa and they have had throughout the summer and into the fall. A lot of tankers had done crude changes in Cape Town in the past. Because of the crude change crisis, a lot of tanker companies that are tankers coming out of the Middle East and headed for the U.S., they're not stopping in Africa. They're extending their voyages by two weeks so they can get to Europe and change out crews or they're going straight to the United States and extending contracts of the seafarers on board. This is placing additional hardship on the seafarers, but eventually they do get to change out. This is the kind of impacts that we're having on the industry. Admiral, thank you so much. That's a great answer and we have about 10 minutes remaining. If we could use that last reply, which was a really good overview, to pivot to the question from Dr. Petrig and more broadly, closing remarks about what are some of the positive impacts, recognizing that the pandemic is not over, recognizing that there is a continuing crisis, as you've alluded to, along with Doug. What are some, in your view, some positive long-term effects or changes, either regarding seafarer rights at the institutional level? We talked about it at the national level. You mentioned potentially a general assembly resolution. We've seen the international maritime organization as you referenced, the resolution, designation as key workers. In the closing couple of minutes, if you could expand on what are some of the events over the past few months that you would like to see move forward with either greater fidelity or greater permanence. Okay, thanks. First, the improved collaboration and cooperation between all stakeholders that we've seen through the pandemic is really encouraging and certainly want to keep that momentum. The increased exposure regarding shipping and the awareness regarding shipping I think also is going to lead to changes in many, many areas. I won't even really speculate, but I think this could have lasting impacts on the way shipping is viewed, number one, and also the way it is regulated. We'll have to see. Now, one of the things that the IMO Council did at its 32nd extraordinary session in July was it asked that each one of the IMO committees place a specific agenda item on the impacts of COVID-19. As I mentioned, the Maritime Safety Committee will be taking that up in November. One of the things I think they will be discussing is whether to make the protocols more permanent or more official by making them IMO guidelines. I think that's going to be considered by the committee. The legal committee is meeting at the end of November. That is where the IMO looks at a lot of seafarers rights issues, including abandonment, fair treatment of seafarers in the event of a casualty. I'm expecting a very interesting discussion at the legal committee as to what should be done in the future to ensure fair treatment of seafarers, because I don't think anyone could say that seafarers have been treated fairly through this pandemic. The conditions they've had to endure are really they're heartbreaking, but at the same time, they're heartwarming to see how well the seafarers have responded to it and how they've continued to deliver for the world. We have to deliver for them now. Thanks so much. To clarify, even if there's a technical glitch on the IMO website for the documents that you reference, can participants and anyone go to the IMO website to get a copy of the documents that you've referenced in our discussions? Yes, they're all publicly available. As I said, the COVID-19 section of our website has a wealth of resources. Perfect. Thanks so much. Doug, for closing remarks and recognizing if there's anything you'd like to add, you've got great insight into some of the personal and broader challenges. So thank you, and it was great having you as a panelist. Thank you. Well, first of all, I'd like to really commend that Seafarers Crisis Action Team and IMO has done an unbelievable job of bringing together the industry and governmental organizations to put the attention where it belongs. So one thing I would like to ensure that I recommend that that continue, which I'm sure it will. Secondly, one of the things I didn't really mention is that there's a real importance for, of course, for every country to protect the health of their citizens. But those labor-supplying countries who supply the world seafarers, they ought to consider the balancing of protecting their citizens and particularly their seafarers' health with their seafarers' job opportunities. For example, if they're, if the domestic restrictions are so onerous, then ship owners are simply going to hire seafarers from other countries. So they really ought to consider the importance of seafarers as key workers, not only to the world economy, but to their own economy. And finally, since Fred covered just about everything I would have said, there's one other thing that I would just mention is that I think it would be really, really helpful if the IMO's international convention on international maritime traffic's provision on prohibiting visas for seafarers was followed by all signatories. I would just add that point. Thanks so much. Exceptional panelists. I'd like to turn it over to Commander Peta from the Naval War College Stockton Center for International Law. And I would like to extend my personal thanks for bringing together two of the smartest and most knowledgeable people on both the challenges for seafarers. And now that bridges into safety, security, national sovereignty, and the complexity is important. And it's equally important that you start breaking down that complexity and seeing what we can do. But with that, thank you for the privilege of facilitating and Commander, over to you. Thank you, Brian. Just a quick plug for the Stockton Center series. We come together about once a month to address an international pressing issue and encourage all the members in the audience to look for those. And feel free, you have my email address from the invitation you got for this event. Feel free to reach out to me directly for further information. And then in closing, I want to thank Mr. Wilson. He is a master maritime scholar, which I think was clear in his moderation of this event. Thank you, Brian, for all the effort you put forth in the discussion. Doug, thank you from the Stockton Center for all that you do, the conscientious work you do for seafarers across the globe. And finally, Admiral, thanks for your leadership at the IMO and what you've done to fight. Against this humanitarian crisis. Last but not least to the audience, thank you. This is a heavy issue and we learned a lot. But the session was a success. The reason we got together was to increase awareness. And I thank you for taking time out of your day to become increasingly aware of this issue so that decision makers in the future can be so informed. So thank you. And from the Stockton Center, we'll sign off now. Thanks very much, Mike. If I could just say one thing, I was looking at the participant list and a shout out to all my old shipmates and CG Jag. I see a lot of you participated today. Thanks for being here. Admiral Burt, thanks very much. Admiral Rich Timmy, I saw that you were on as well. Looking forward to see you in London soon. Thanks very much, Mike. Yes, sir. And Professor Kraska, no slight to you, sir. I'm not sure if you had any closing marks. Great. Well, thanks everybody again for joining us for this conversation. Take care.