RECALLING Article 38(a) of the Convention on the International
Maritime Organization concerning the functions of the Marine Environment
Protection Committee conferred upon it by the international conventions
for the prevention and control of marine pollution,
RECALLING ALSO that the International Conference on Ballast
Water Management for Ships held in February 2004 adopted the International
Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast
Water and Sediments, 2004 (the Ballast Water Management Convention)
together with four Conference resolutions,
NOTING that regulation A-2 of the Ballast Water Management
Convention requires that discharge of ballast water shall only be
conducted through ballast water management in accordance with the
provisions of the Annex to the Convention,
NOTING FURTHER that article 9 of the Ballast Water Management
Convention provides that a ship to which the Convention applies may,
in any port or offshore terminal of another Party, be subject to inspection
by officers duly authorized by that Party for the purpose of determining
whether the ship is in compliance with this Convention. Such an inspection
is limited to, inter alia, a sampling of the ship’s
ballast water, carried out in accordance with the guidelines to be
developed by the Organization,
NOTING ALSO that the International Conference on Ballast
Water Management for Ships, in its resolution 1, invited the Organization
to develop Guidelines for uniform application of the Convention as
a matter of urgency,
HAVING CONSIDERED, at its fifty-eighth session, the draft
Guidelines for ballast water sampling (G2) developed by the Ballast
Water Review Group,
1. ADOPTS the Guidelines for ballast water sampling
(G2) as set out in the Annex to this resolution;
2. INVITES Governments to apply the Guidelines
as soon as possible, or when the Convention becomes applicable to
them; and
3. AGREES to keep the Guidelines under review.