In the afternoon of Thursday 19 May, we will be relaunching the IAPH Cruise Committee, onboarding a new chair at our Legal Committee and sharing best practice at the inaugural meeting of the Planning, Operations and Finance Committee. Following a pause of two years, the Cruise Committee will resume its activities in Vancouver. The main aim of the meeting is to define a work programme for the Committee for the coming years, with a strong emphasis on sustainability, including reduction of emissions and sustainable tourism. The Committee will also liaise with related IAPH activities, such as the new ‘at berth’ module of the Environmental Ship Index (ESI), which will be presented at the meeting by Port of Amsterdam’s Henri van der Weide. In achieving its work programme, the IAPH Cruise Committee will be working closely with the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) which will be represented at the Vancouver meeting by Nikos Mertzanidis, director of government affairs Europe, who will give a presentation on CLIA’s priorities in working with the global ports’ community. The executive director maritime of the Port of Seattle, Stephanie Jones Stebbins, will present the port’s Green Cruise Corridor project, which will be revealed during the World Ports Conference. The Vancouver meeting of the Legal Committee will mark a ‘changing of the guard’ with Mārtiņš Ziemanis (Freeport of Riga Authority) taking over from Frans van Zoelen (Port of Rotterdam), who has been the Committee’s chair since 2004. The agenda includes a discussion on the output of the last IMO Legal Committee, covering the 2010 HNS Protocol, measures to assess the need to amend liability limits, the claims manual for the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage and maritime autonomous surface shipping. Members will also be invited to discuss the future agenda and way of working of the Committee, including IMO coverage. Finally, Marcus John (TT Club) will provide a presentation on port authority risk issues. The Planning, Operations and Finance Committee is a new technical committee that aims at sharing knowledge and best practices of planning, operations and finance issues which are valuable for port authorities, terminal operators and others. The Committee is scheduled to meet once a year in person at the World Ports Conference. The agenda for Vancouver includes the impact of ever-larger container vessels, with a presentation by Christoph Rasewsky of Oceans One, and a discussion on the IAPH-PIANC project ‘guidance for ports in small island countries’, with contributions from Justin Cross (Royal Haskoning DHV), Solomon Islands Ports Authority)and Ichio Motono (OCDI). Registration for all technical committee meetings can be done here.
