There appears to be some movement on the urgent issue of crew changes and repatriation of seafarers with Port State Control (PSC) regimes having expressed their willingness to be part of the solution.
This, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), is a key outcome of the second virtual meeting of all PSC regimes organised by the organisation in cooperation with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to address issues surrounding surveys and certificate renewals during the pandemic.
Even though crew changes and repatriation are not directly under the realm of port State control authorities, they can still play an important role as they are in charge of carrying out inspections onboard ships to monitor and enforce compliance with international regulations. For example, safety issues resulting from crew fatigue may be examined by port State control, especially when extensions of seafarers' contracts violate the maximum stipulated in ILO's Maritime Labour Convention (MLC). PSC regimes can also help IMO's Seafarer Crisis Action Team resolve individual cases by providing valuable information about specific situations