Held at the prestigious Naval Club in Mayfair, September’s Propeller Club Luncheon began by Propeller Club President, Ian Millen, welcoming everyone before introducing guest speaker, David Hammond, CEO, Human Rights at Sea.
Speaking a few days before the first International Maritime Human Rights Conference (14th Sept), David Hammond discussed the background and work of the Charity and highlighted the current issues concerning human rights provisions and protections within the maritime industry and wider maritime environment.
David began his presentation with a hard-hitting short film ‘The Dead Sea’, partly funded by Human Rights at Sea, emotionally demonstrating some of the major issues that migrants in the Mediterranean face and the traumas that they have been through – all based on real life events in Libya.
Discussing the reasons for the video and how it aligns with the work of the Charity, David said: “I start with that video because if somebody asks what we do, it demonstrates the environment we work in and the issues that address; and it’s a tough environment. We do not just cover the commercial industry; we cover the entire maritime environment. We deal with these people and these instances of abuse and violence, day-in, day-out. We also show the video because the crews who have to rescue at sea, and the learning and training we provide, provides direct support to those dealing with situations like those that you have just witnessed.”
Going on to talk about how the Charity was founded, David continued: “What is the landscape of human rights at sea? We know about and understand labour rights and the Maritime Labour Convention – what about explicit coverage of all human rights? What about the right to life – the issues about torture, degrading treatment, the right to education, for example. All of those things that are implied by the rights conveyed by the MLC but are not specific labour rights – ‘human rights’ is a distinct separate area of public international law alongside labour rights.
Today, if you type in the words ‘human rights at sea’ in to any search engine, the common language of those four words and its customary use, is now spread across the web. It has been exposed to the likes of the World Maritime University, the European Union Law of the Sea summer school and next month, I am in Finland briefing NATO about human rights at sea. And if you type ‘human rights at sea’ into the internet right now, the Charity is currently at the forefront of this issue, and I am deeply proud of that. “
Bringing his presentation to a close, David addressed the coming inaugural International Maritime Human Rights Conference that was about to take place.
“We work on the basis of our core principles: Transparency, Clarity and Accountability in everything that we do. This has led us to conceiving, running, and being very well supported for, the first ever International Maritime Human Rights Conference (IMHR) here in London to be held at The Royal College of Surgeons.
The shipping industry doesn’t seem to want to know about human rights because actually, a common myth is that the Maritime Labour Convention is a Human Rights Convention - it’s not.”
So, at IMHR, we have a diverse range of speakers - from a salvage ship-owner, flag States, business and human rights entities, to government. As a charity, we introduced ‘Gender at Sea’, we introduced the lesbian, gay, bi, transsexual work area at sea. I was told that that was going to be a very tough thing to raise within the maritime community. Whether you agree or disagree with it, these people, these groups, including suspected pirates, are entitled to human rights.
Human rights apply to all of us. We cannot be choosers, we want human rights, we want their protections – we either have them, or we don’t.
We hope this conference helps to address this and continue to push forward the agenda of Human Rights at Sea – hopefully the issue will be picked up by the IMO, ILO and further afield.”
David ended his speech with a second video highlighting the Charity’s flagship programmes, the Missing Seafarers & Fishers Reporting Programme alongside the Charity’s Internship Programme, projects both funded by Seafarers UK, stressing there was clearly much more work to be done across all their areas of maritime human rights’ work.
Following the presentation, there was much praise for the work that David and Human Rights at Sea has achieved to date, and a busy question and answer session followed.
On a slightly lighter note, drawing the lunch to a close, Ian Millen had the pleasure of congratulating Andrew Dalrymple on being awarded the Merchant Navy medal, Liz Watton on her engagement, and lead everyone in singing ‘happy birthday’ to Norman Swindle who was celebrating his 89th birthday!
