For decades, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has been one of the least well-known yet most effective international organisations in the world. But the IMO is now in danger of becoming too political. The opinion piece below was written by Pieter Zhao for de Volkskrant. He is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC).
The main conference hall of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in London, where all member states sit with their nameplates in front of them, has been filled over the past week and a half with people who normally discuss lifeboats, fire extinguishers and the thickness of ship hulls. Engineers, former seafarers, maritime lawyers: the experts of the world’s seas. But when the chair called for a vote on a resolution that named Iran as the aggressor, and 59 countries voted in favour, 33 abstained and two voted against, the chamber briefly felt like the UN Security Council.
Safety in global shipping
The IMO is one of the least well-known but most effective international organisations in the world. As a specialised agency of the United Nations, established in 1948, it regulates safety and environmental standards in global shipping. Around 90 per cent of world trade is carried by sea, and it is the IMO that quietly sets the rules for this.
The Netherlands played an active role in this, including as a co-signatory to the resolution on the Strait of Hormuz and as chair of a technical working group on satellite tracking of ships. A dry subject, but a concrete example of how the IMO works in practice: through patient technical negotiations between rich and poor states, until a workable solution is found.
International law
For that is precisely what makes the IMO so remarkable as an example of how international law can work. At a time when such law is often dismissed as toothless or naïve, the IMO demonstrates what is possible when states are prepared to set aside their political differences. Formal voting almost never takes place within the IMO. Most decisions are reached through consultation and consensus, in working groups and technical committees where engineers and lawyers work together to find solutions. Recently, this even culminated in a historic decision: for the first time, the international community adopted a regulatory framework for autonomous ships.
The Maritime Safety Committee 111 was therefore already a historic session before geopolitics entered the room.
On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel carried out military strikes against Iran. In the weeks that followed, Iran partially blocked the Strait of Hormuz, fired upon commercial vessels, and left more than twenty thousand seafarers stranded in the region. Eleven of them lost their lives. An organisation that normally steers clear of geopolitics could not ignore the situation this time.
The result was a resolution unlike any the MSC had ever adopted before. Iran was condemned by name, with reference to a UN Security Council resolution which characterised Iran’s actions as a violation of international law. For the first time in a long while, a member state – Iran itself – requested a roll-call vote, the most serious procedural measure a state can employ within the IMO.
Counter-resolutions
At the same time, Iran tabled three counter-resolutions. In these, it accused the US of piracy at sea, citing statements by the US President himself, who described the seizure of Iranian oil tankers as acts of piracy. But Iran also highlighted what it saw as the hypocrisy of some of the signatories: before the US and Israeli attacks, there had been no problem at all in the Strait of Hormuz. The Emirates, one of the driving forces behind the resolution, came in for explicit criticism. The 33 abstentions speak for themselves: a large part of the world refused to be drawn into this conflict.
In the Black Sea, too, ships are being attacked and seafarers are falling victim to a conflict between states. However, a similar resolution concerning Russia is politically unthinkable, as Russia can block any prior UN condemnation. The Hormuz resolution was made possible in part because the legal groundwork had already been laid elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the strength of the IMO lies precisely in the fact that all maritime states are represented at the table, including Iran and Russia. This makes cooperation possible, but also leaves the organisation vulnerable as soon as that cooperation comes under political pressure. An organisation that starts naming and shaming aggressor states – however understandable that may be given the suffering of tens of thousands of stranded seafarers – is a very different organisation from the quiet rule-maker that has managed the world’s oceans for decades. In the corridors of power in London, I heard the same concern repeatedly from diplomats from all sorts of countries: the IMO is becoming too political.
The maritime technocrats in London are aware of this. The question is whether geopolitics will allow them the leeway to remain so.
- Researcher
- More information
This opinion piece was originally published in De Volkskrant.
