It is an important new international labour Convention that was adopted by the International Labour Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO), under the article 19 of its Constitution at a maritime session in February 2006 in Geneva, Switzerland. It sets out seafares’ rights to decent conditions of work and helps to create conditions of fair completition for shipowners. It is intended to be globally applicable, easily undrestandable, readily updatable and uniformly enforced.

The Maritme Labour Convention, 2006 contains a comprehensive set of global standards, based on those that already found in 68 maritime instruments (Conventions and Recommendations), adopted by the ILO since 1920. The new Convention brings almost all of the existing maritime labour instruments together in a single new Convention that uses a new format with some updating, where necessary, to reflect modern conditions and language.