Is STCW un-American? After the Coast Guard published its intent last November to bring license and documentation requirements for US mariners more into line with the international standards set by the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping Convention and Code, reaction among American commercial mariners was mixed. Some approved of the new standards and said the change was overdue. But many felt the Coast Guard was ignoring the special needs and history of American mariners by imposing foreign standards on us. Captain Anchor Chain described the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to me as “a bunch of busy-body retired British mariners telling other people how to run their lives.” Captain Dip Correction called it an attempt to impose a European-style social class system on the merchant marine of a classless American society, an attitude Captain Pillager summed up when he called the new regulations “the end of the hawespipe.”
The latest round of changes to US regulations would bring not just certifications but the license structure itself into compliance with STCW. The US Constitution gives treaties the force of US law, and the IMO (and thus it’s regulations) is an arm of the United Nations, to which the US is bound by treaty. The STCW Convention also requires participating nations to enforce the provisions of the code on all vessels in their ports, whether that vessel hails from a participating nation or not. Thus, US mariners run the risk of not having their credentials, however hard-earned, not recognized by the “port state authorities” of other nations.
Unamerican sounds like such a good thing to be. I don't see why it is seen by some as unpatriotic. There is no consensus on what it means to be American anyway.
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