For IAPH, the 1980s began with celebration and reflection. The association’s 12th biennial conference, which took place in Nagoya, Japan in May 1981, marked 25 years of operation. Prior to the gathering, IAPH paid tribute to its founding fathers by placing dedicated memorial monuments at the graves of Gaku Matsumoto in Tokyo, and Chujiro Haraguchi in Kobe. In his address at the occasion of the Tokyo memorial, IAPH president Paul Bastard quoted an old Chinese proverb: those who drink the water must remember those who dug the well. IAPH’s silver jubilee was marked by a determination that it should present itself as the leading force in solving global port challenges. Around the world, tanker accidents were generating headlines. March 1978 had seen the largest oil spill disaster ever, when the tanker Amoco Cadiz tanker ran aground off the coast of Brittany, France spilling 220,000 tons of crude oil. Collisions and explosions just outside port limits of Copenhagen, Oman and Singapore earlier in the decade demonstrated the high risk of blocked approach channels and hindered port traffic, not to mention environmental damage and loss of life. Resolutions made in Nagoya provide evidence of IAPH’s determination to influence the direction of reform on this topic, making proposals on appropriate levels of liability for damages from such incidents and adequate effective insurance covering the responsibilities of shippers and shipowners, to be considered in future updates to IMCO instruments. Further resolutions were made at the 1983 Vancouver conference and correspondence continued between senior figures at the IAPH and the renamed IMO, ahead of a 1984 IMO Diplomatic Conference; that meeting saw the adoption of draft Protocols to the 1969 Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage and to the 1971 Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage. That year, IAPH also joined ICS and OCIMF in producing the second edition of the International Safety Guide for Oil Tankers and Terminals – further evidence of the association’s commitment to bringing a port perspective to the most critical maritime matters of the day.
