Vatican urges adoption of U.N. law to protect seafarer safety

Published: 2006-02-27

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican urged the adoption, ratification and implementation of a new U.N. convention that would secure better working conditions for some 1.25 million seafarers around the world. In a Feb. 20 speech at the International Labor Organization's Feb. 7-23 Maritime Labor Conference in Geneva, the Vatican representative to Geneva-based U.N. agencies, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, said a new maritime convention was "an indispensable tool" that would bring fairer and more just treatment to seafarers around the world. The Vatican released a copy of the archbishop's text Feb. 25. While the ILO adopted the so-called Consolidated Maritime Labor Convention Feb. 24 after its deliberations, the measure still needed to be ratified and implemented by the U.N. agency's member states.

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