Port state control

[2] In 1978, a number of European countries agreed in The Hague on a memorandum for the audit of labour conditions on board vessels as to whether they were in accordance with the rules of the ILO.

After the Amoco Cadiz sank that year, it was decided to also audit safety and pollution practices.

[13] Detention of the ship is the last course of action that a PSCO would take upon finding deficiencies aboard the vessel.

Courses of action a PSCO may impose on a ship with deficiencies (in order of ascending gravity) are:[14] The countries that implement PSC are referred to as port states.

The extraterritorial jurisdictional basis for such enforcement and sanctioning is found within the special provisions of part XII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Signatories to the Paris MOU (blue), Tokyo MOU (red), Indian Ocean MOU (green), Mediterranean MOU (dark green), Acuerdo de Viña del Mar (yellow), [ 1 ] Caribbean MOU (olive), Abuja MOU (dark red), Black Sea MOU (cyan) and Riyadh MOU (navy).