By Clay Evans, maritime historian and retired Canadian Coast Guard lifeboat coxswain

At the 1924 ‘Conference on the World’s Lifeboat Services’ held in London, later known as the First International Lifeboat Conference (ILC), the representative of the Imperial Japanese Lifeboat Society, Count Kozo Yoshii, put forward a motion for the creation of a new international lifeboat organisation, which included registering it with the new League of Nations and giving it the responsibility to “promote cooperation between the world’s existing lifeboat services”.

One hundred years later, the IMRF continues to pursue this primary objective, with its key mission of ‘Promoting Cooperation, Exchange of Information, Research and Development, Advice and Consultancy Between the Maritime SAR Services of the World’.

The recognition that such an organisation should be created and the establishment of the original quadrennial ILCs as a communications forum for international cooperation in maritime SAR was, in essence, the IMRF’s first concrete measure to pursue this mission. To put it simply, international cooperation in all things maritime SAR remains at the core of what the IMRF does to this day.

Over the last 10 decades, the ILF, and later the IMRF, and its many members have worked diligently to promote internationalism in the context of humanitarianism at sea. The IMRF’s continued advocacy for universal issues of international consequence remains a cornerstone of its initiatives and activities over the last century.

International Markings and Neutrality for Rescue Craft During Armed Conflict

Given that the First World War had ended only six years prior to the first gathering in 1924, one of the delegates attending, Captain Ottar Vogt of the Norwegian Lifeboat Service, presented a brief paper on ‘The Question of the Desirability of an International Distinguishing Mark for Life-boats’.  Captain Vogt felt that, internationally, all lifeboats should have a common form of identification to signify their specific humanitarian purpose, particularly during periods of armed conflict, stating, “It ought to be a cross to signify the humane aim. The Life-boat is already known as the Red Cross of the Seas”. 

Representatives who had attended the international lifeboat conferences worked closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross to update provisions of the Geneva Conventions relating to the safety of coastal rescue craft during times of armed conflict. Credit IFRC

The original Hague (Geneva) Convention on Maritime Warfare signed in 1907 maintained a provision for the designation and marking of hospital ships and related small craft, such as ship’s lifeboats, during times of war, but nothing specific to coastal rescue craft.

Unfortunately, it would take another global conflict in the form of the Second World War to once again draw attention to the issue of markings and neutrality for rescue craft, primarily as a result of the many harsh, and sometimes tragic, lessons learned by the lifeboat services involved on all sides of the war. As a result, at the Fifth ILC held in Oslo in 1947, a resolution was adopted, stating that: The present rules in the Xth  Hague Convention of 18th October 1907 may not afford Life-boat Services and their apparels sufficient protection in case of war.

While appreciating that there are many considerations which must necessarily play a part in the framing of new rules on these matters, it is felt that the important humanitarian interests attached to Life-boat services of the world make it imperative that Life-boat services of the world should be specially represented at any future international conference dealing with the subject. 

Unfortunately, given that the United Nations was in its infancy and the International Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO – later known as the IMO) would not become a reality until 1958, there was no official international maritime body to which the delegates of the Fifth ILC could directly appeal. Nor could the ILC represent its members as it had yet to become a federation.

Progress was made, however, at the Diplomatic Conference at Geneva held in 1949 to review the original 1907 Convention on Maritime Warfare. The delegates from several countries, including the Netherlands and Sweden, had strong ties to their lifeboat organisations and the ILC, and ensured that markings and neutrality of lifeboats and rescue craft were included in the revised conventions, as per the resolution. Key among these individuals was Surgeon-Captain A.W. Mellema of the Royal Netherlands Navy, who worked diligently as the committee lead and scribe, over several months of very complex negotiations. In the end, Chapter III of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 was updated to include Article 27, which provided protection for “small craft employed by officially recognised lifeboat institutions for coastal rescue operations and fixed coastal installations used exclusively by these craft for their humanitarian missions”. 

In addition to a number of other articles that dealt with such issues as the operations of lifeboat services in occupied states and the international mechanisms to verify what makes a lifeboat organisation “officially recognised”, the new convention also recognised the validity of Captain Vogt’s recommendation from 1924, and allowed rescue craft to use the red cross, on a white background, to signify their neutral and humanitarian status during times of armed conflict.

Promotion of the International SAR Plan

At the Sixth ILC held in Belgium in 1951, Captain Hans Hansson, Director of the Swedish Life-Boat Society (SSRS), presented a brief paper entitled, ‘Can International Co-operation Within the Sea Rescue Services be Expanded?’ Captain Hansson, in his several decades at the helm of the SSRS, was a constant advocate for the ILC and for the promotion of the international tenets of humanitarian at sea.  In this paper he requested that “…the Conference be pleased to discuss whether it be considered suitable…to make representations with the U.N. for an appeal to be addressed to all coastal countries to contact their neighbours with a view to establishing air and sea rescue service co-operation.”

At the same conference, Captain C. Roets of the host Belgian Marine Administration, agreed and went on to suggest that, in so far as the North Sea was concerned, that “delimiting the normal fields of activity of neighbouring foreign rescue services by theoretical lines of demarcation or sea-boundaries” should be considered in order to confirm which coastal-state and rescue service was responsible, as well as to avoid overlap of response when it was not required. 

A map showing the Indian Ocean portion of the Global SAR Plan including search and rescue region (SRR) delineations. Credit: AMSA    

What these two fine gentlemen of the sea were promoting through the auspices of the ILC would form the roots of today’s Global SAR Plan, which is administered by the IMO and which not only delineates national search and rescue regions (SRRs) for areas of response, but also provides information on the location and capabilities of the world’s maritime SAR services.     

The IMO and the International Convention on Maritime SAR

Like most efforts in the promotion and development of international law and conventions, the measures proposed by Captains Hanssen and Roets would not happen overnight. It would not be until the 1970s that concerted efforts would take place on the international front to coordinate SAR capability and response around the globe in the form of the International Convention on Maritime SAR, which was adopted in 1979 and came into force in 1985. The primary goal of this new convention was and is the development and maintenance of a global SAR plan and internationally recognised SAR procedures.

There is no doubt that the early efforts of the ILC and its constituent members had a profound effect on the development and implementation of this convention and its adoption into domestic use by multiple coastal states.

The critical involvement of the ILC and its members in this important work is represented by the fact that in 1985 the ILC was granted official non-governmental consultative status at the IMO. This designation laid the groundwork for the “conference” to become more than just a series of informative meetings, but an official body, which could represent its members at IMO meetings and sub-committees dealing with all matters concerning maritime SAR - a role which the IMRF continues to this day. Within 10 years, the International Lifeboat Conference would become the International Lifeboat Federation (ILF), with a small staff, primarily supported by the RNLI, to attend such meetings.

International Aeronautical and Maritime SAR Manual (IAMSAR)

A great deal of the consultative work that the ILC and ILF did over these early years, through direct representation, as well as that of its members, was to assist in the development of the international maritime SAR manuals, which eventually evolved into the three volume, International Aeronautical and Maritime SAR Manual (IAMSAR). This important work continues today with IMRF IMO Representative and SAR Advisor Roland McKie attending the annual meeting of the ICAO-IMO SAR Joint Working Group (JWG) in Cape Town, South Africa, last November as an official observer.

Mass Rescue Operations (MRO) Guidance

As a result of a series of large-scale marine disasters involving large passenger vessels over the previous decades, the IMO published a circular in 2003 entitled ‘Guidance for Mass Rescue Operations’ and in 2005 the IAMSAR manuals were updated to include a brief section on MROs. 
In 2007, the ILF became the IMRF, with the objective of encompassing all elements of maritime SAR, including aeronautical and shore-based response. This organisational change in name and scope coincided with a recognition that the basic MRO Guidance in IAMSAR could be enhanced with the development of far more robust guidance material on all aspects of MRO preparedness, planning and operations.

The IMRF’s MRO Guidance expands on the basic MRO provisions in IAMSAR, providing a useful tool for coastal states and rescue organizations who are developing their own MRO response plans and procedures. Credit: IMRF

This synergy of international cooperation, in conjunction with the IMO, and with a universal objective to help coastal states and maritime rescue organizations prepare and conduct MROs continues to this day with strong connectivity between the IAMSAR Manuals and the IMRF’s MRO Guidance and remains one of the primary missions of the IMRF with annual MRO workshops and conferences. You can read more on the history of MRO within the IMRF at (insert hyperlink to MRO article).

IMRF and International Cooperation Today

Today, the IMRF continues to pursue the concept of internationalism in the context of humanitarianism at sea with several initiatives including managing the monthly virtual Global Maritime SAR Forum (GMSF) to share, present and discuss current, new, or proposed technologies, processes, procedures, skills, techniques, training, lessons, and experiences with a view to sharing information to improve SAR.

From a historical perspective, the roots of the IMRF are principally about the promotion of international efforts to support maritime SAR capacity and capability around the globe. Ultimately, such factors as geopolitical and climactic change will affect the pursuit of this noble objective and the IMRF will, like all organisations with a humanitarian mandate, continue to adapt and evolve to fulfill the same mission that was put forward in 1924.