Contemporary Trends in International Maritime Organization’s Navigation Safety Activities

This article is devoted to the problems and challenges which face up-to-date navigation and examines some issues within the work of the International Maritime Organization aimed at improving safety in this area. The authors are primarily concerned in the problem of security in the broadest sense of that term: in the light of environmental protection, the operation of vessels, in the context of minimizing negative consequences and damages; the conservation of property and vessels themselves, undoubtedly, in such matters as keeping crewmembers, passengers, personnel and third parties’ life and their health safe. All of these aspects mentioned above should be taken into account in the implementation of activities undertaken by the International Maritime Organization because only fulfilling all these conditions, some improvements and results can be brought about. The authors come to the conclusion that the use of modern technologies, countries’ fruitful international cooperation, the exchange of experience will help to minimize the negative consequences, improve the effectiveness of measures aimed at improving safety in the field of navigation. The following research objectives have been set for in the research process and they are the following: studying the current methods and identifying the most effective and fruitful among them, analyzing existing conventions, instruments, provisions, resolutions, strategic plans in order to identify gaps which would be worth paying attention to, as well as recommendations to eradicate problems have also been highlighted. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.