Palau, Liberia, Marshall Islands and Panama Unite on Sanctions

Vessels which violate the current United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) on trading with North Korea will not be registered with the Palau International Ship Registry (PISR). The announcement comes as the registry unites with Liberia, Marshall Islands and Panama on the issue.

Palau International Ship Registry (PISR) on January 21, 2020 joined the Memorandum of Understanding between Liberia, Marshall Islands and Panama. This MOU offers collaboration between the four major ship registries on sharing information when a flag registry deregisters or is in process of de registering, or when it denies registration of a vessel due to engagement in a sanctionable activity. Under the MoU all four registries will now promptly notify other flags to ensure questionable vessels are not registered in line with the UNSCR regulations.

Both the Government of Palau and PISR have instigated strong measures to ensure the due diligence in screening vessels before they are registered under the Palau flag, including using the latest technology which includes the PurpleTRAC sanction compliance platform, monitoring of AIS transmissions and LRIT ship position tracking.

As part of these steps, members of PISR have recently attended several trainings on conducting due diligence to comply with U.S. sanctions and United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) sponsored by the U. S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Non-proliferation (ISN). The most recent was the participation in the Symposium on Enhancing Ship Registry Management and Compliance Standards held on February 5, 2020 in Washington DC.

Panos Kirnidis, CEO of PISR, has put the registry on alert to recognise and support the work of the UNSCR. “Palau recognizes the importance of ship registries, ship owners and managers working together to raise awareness of North Korea’s illicit shipping practices and to enforce UNSCRs to increase regional and global security. We have vessels registered across the globe and our diligence and our personnel working for the registry in 43 countries means we can support and monitor the vessels registered with us. We are fully supportive of the need to maintain law and order on the seas and we are fully behind this initiative as one of the world’s leading ship registries.”

Panos Kirnidis believes this is a justifiable and welcome course of action to effectively comply with its obligations to improve implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) related to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and other country sanctions.

“We are a reputable and growing registry and we will ensure that any vessels that are in breach of the UNSCR regulations related to sanctions violations from vessels trading with North Korea will not be flying the Palau flag or those of our respected partners in this new initiative.”