IMO ships routeing
Traffic separation schemes, deep water routes and mandatory reporting as IMO instruments, and the UNCLOS mechanism that makes them binding.
Ships’ routeing covers the traffic separation schemes, deep water routes, precautionary areas, areas to be avoided and mandatory reporting systems that organize traffic in congested and hazardous waters. IMO is the only international body that adopts them, and SOLAS chapter V carries the obligations that make participation mandatory where a system has been adopted.
The law of the sea supplies the mechanism in a strait. Article 41 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows sea lanes and traffic separation schemes to be designated only after referring proposals to the competent international organization, which may adopt only such schemes as are agreed with the states bordering the strait. That is why routeing in the Strait of Hormuz, the Straits of Malacca and Singapore and the Turkish Straits rests on IMO instruments rather than on unilateral national action.
The full article will cover the instrument types, the adoption procedure, the general provisions on ships’ routeing, and the principal schemes at the world’s chokepoints.