Sea rescue

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Air rescue after a fishing trawler reached "calmer" waters in the slipstream of HMS Echo , 2013.
Lifeboat is launched off Cape Cod , around 1900

Sea rescue is the help for people in distress at sea . Activities include rescuing shipwrecked people, fighting fires at sea and searching for missing persons. According to international law of the sea, including the Convention on the Law of the Sea , the SOLAS Agreement and the International Convention on Rescue at Sea of 1979 , all coastal states are obliged to ensure the rescue of shipwrecked people in their sea area by suitable means, whereby the rescue of people in need at sea is an obligation for all ships and represents crews.

international law

On the initiative of the Comité Maritime International , the First Diplomatic Conference on the Law of the Sea was convened in Brussels in 1910 . For sea rescue, international rules for sea distress were codified for the first time in the Convention for the Uniform Determination of Rules for the Collision of Ships and the Convention for the Uniform Determination of Rules for Assistance and Rescue in Distress . The duty of every skipper to rescue at sea in Article 11 of the Convention on the Uniform Determination of Rules on Assistance and Rescue in Distress was as follows:

Every captain is obliged to provide assistance to all persons, even hostile ones, who are encountered in mortal danger at sea, insofar as he is able to do so without serious danger to his ship and its crew and travelers.

The first SOLAS convention came into being in 1913 as a reaction to the accident involving the RMS Titanic , in which it turned out that uniform alarms for ships in distress and also a minimum standard for rescue equipment are necessary.

At the 1960 SOLAS conference, the provisions for the creation of sea rescue facilities and other measures were adopted which were intended to improve safety in international waters remote from the coast. These include ships and aircraft for search and rescue ( Search and Rescue Units short SRUs ) coast stations ( Coast Radio Stations CSR ), Rescue Coordination Centers to keep ahead and to promote the development of a position detection system for merchant ships and from distress beacons . Cooperation between the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Organizations for Civil Aviation ( ICAO ), Telecommunications ( ITU ) and Meteorology ( WMO ) was also agreed. At the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue 1979 in Hamburg, the division into 13 global sea rescue areas and the mutual cooperation of the respective neighboring countries was agreed. In the years that followed, individual sea rescue regions (SRR) were agreed with the member states of the IMO, for which the national states are to ensure the establishment and maintenance of sea rescue facilities. In 1997 the IMO and the ICAO decided to bundle the coordination of rescue operations on the seas and in many countries the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centers were merged with the Air Rescue Coordination Centers to form joint Rescue Coordination Centers .

According to international law of the sea ( SOLAS of 1974 and International Convention on Rescue at Sea of 1979 ) and nautical tradition, every skipper on the high seas is obliged to provide immediate assistance in the event of distress, regardless of nationality, status and circumstances in which the person seeking help finds himself when he is informed of a specific emergency situation. According to the SAR Convention of 1979, states must also provide help in the event of distress and provide medical care to those seeking help and bring them quickly to a safe place. The state Maritime Rescue Coordination Centers coordinate the rescue measures. For those seeking protection, states should also observe the non-refoulement requirement contained in various conventions , according to which they may not be returned to an unsafe place. A ship can only be repaired and supplied in harbors or near the coast and is not at the mercy of the forces of nature on the high seas, which is why the emergency port law emerged as customary international law at an early stage . It is based on the state of emergency (danger to life) or necessity (other dangers) in the event of distress, which enables the captain of the ship to call at a suitable port. Distress at sea is present if, from the point of view of the captain, there is an insurmountable and compelling emergency with a risk to the ship, cargo or people on it when exercising his due discretion. The exception limits the sovereign freedom of decision of the coastal or port state concerned to access foreign ships into its territorial waters and the legislative and executive power over foreign ships that are in distress.

The IMO has drawn up manuals and principles that are not legally binding, but which, as far as practically applicable, form a minimum standard for the implementation of the SAR Convention. The two most important documents are the International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue Manual (IAMSAR) and the guidelines published in 2004 for dealing with rescued persons at sea.

The Convention of the United Nations (English "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea", UNCLOS) defines the so-called 200-mile zone as "exclusive economic zone" of each country. Each state is responsible for the infrastructure for sea rescue in this area, it can equip its armed forces for this or commission a civil organization. In many Western European countries, the water rescue organizations are donation-financed volunteer organizations, for example in Germany, France and England.

The seas are divided into Sea Rescue Zones ( SAR Zone ), for which a respective Sea Rescue Coordination Center ( Maritime Rescue Coordination Center , MRCC for short ) takes over the notification and coordination of sea emergencies . The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) was set up for notification and communication .

Criminal law regulations when failing to rescue at sea

Violations of the duty to rescue at sea are of an international law nature and can only have consequences at the intergovernmental level. For ordinary people, failure to rescue at sea can be punishable under national law, provided that the state responsible in the individual case has made this a criminal offense. In coastal waters, according to Art. 2 UNCLOS the law of the coastal state is applicable (territorial principle), at the same time the law of the flag state of the passing ship is also applicable (flag state principle). The coastal state's criminal jurisdiction is subject to restrictions. On the one hand, the coastal state can only exceptionally arrest a person on a foreign ship or carry out investigative activities there if there is a special relationship with the coastal state (Art. 27 Para. 1 UNCLOS) or the foreign ship comes from the internal waters of the coastal state (Art. 27 Paragraph 2SRÜ). The penal power of the coastal state must therefore in principle give way to that of the flag state. On the other hand, foreign ships have the right of peaceful passage through the territorial sea (Art. 17 UNCLOS), i. H. they are allowed to cross the territorial sea swiftly without restrictions by the coastal state (Art. 18 UNCLOS), as long as they do not disturb the peace, order or security of the coastal state (Art. 19 UNCLOS). If an event relevant to criminal law occurs in the exclusive economic zone or on the high seas, only the law of the flag states of the ships involved applies. "

According to Art. 98, Paragraph 1 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, the flag state is obliged to implement the provisions of the Convention on the Law of the Sea in national law.

This has been done by Germany with the Ordinance on Securing Seafaring (SeeFSicherV), which obliges every skipper to provide assistance. Offenses are criminal offenses according to § 323c StGB or administrative offenses according to § 10 para. 1 no. 1 SeeFSicherV.

In the Codice della Navigazione , the state of Italy has anchored the obligation to rescue at sea. Article 1185 of the regulations stipulates a penalty of up to 2 years in prison for failure to provide assistance to the guides of ships, watercraft and aircraft, which can increase by several years in the event of injury or death as a result of failure.

Organizations

The United States Coast Guard's Integrated Deepwater System program.

Organizations specializing in sea rescue mostly operate near the coast and many are non-governmental organizations. Some of these donation-financed volunteer organizations also offer boat safety services and similar services or work as contract partners for state institutions. State sea rescue is carried out by organizations such as the coast guard, customs or the military, whereby not only special sea rescue boats, but also patrol boats , icebreakers , research and war ships are prepared and deployed for sea rescue missions .

Internationally, the coastal states maintain control centers for coordinating sea rescue, so-called Maritime Rescue Coordination Centers . These offices coordinate the available forces in the event of a sea emergency. Furthermore, possibly required units of foreign sea rescue services can be alerted, if this is necessary and possible. Regular cross-border assignments take place, for example, in the border area between Germany and the Netherlands.

  • German SAR region: In contrast to other states, the Federal Republic of Germany has assigned the tasks of search and rescue at sea as defined in the SOLAS Convention and in the International Convention on Rescue at Sea of ​​1979 to the private law, donation-financed association German Society for Rescue of Shipwrecked People (DGzRS) transfer. Section 1 no. 7 of the Sea Tasks Act (SeeAufgG) stipulates that the federal government is responsible for the provision of the search and rescue service required in emergencies at sea. Despite its private organizational form, the (DGzRS) is included in the German maritime security architecture, although it has not yet been clarified whether it is acting as a publicly entrusted or a mere administrative assistant to the Federal Republic of Germany. The cooperation has grown historically, as the DGzRS has been active in sea rescue since May 29, 1865, long before the Federal Republic was founded. The DGzRS cooperates with the water police, the federal police , customs , the water and shipping administration and the navy , who support the DGzRS in emergencies at sea. The cooperation with naval aviators is of particular importance for the search and rescue service. The Maritime Rescue Coordination Center for the German sea areas of the North Sea and Baltic Sea is the Bremen Sea Emergency Management .
  • Canadian SAR Regions: In Canada , search and rescue at sea is conducted by the Canadian Coast Guard .
  • British SAR region: Her Majesty's Coastguard is responsible here as part of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency . The search and rescue service relies heavily on volunteers and the donation-funded Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and other local sea rescue initiatives. The RNLI reserves the right to instruct its boats if necessary during coordinated operations.
  • US SAR regions: The task is being carried out by the United States Coast Guard .

history

Through the Middle Ages and up to the 18th century, life saving was unknown in Europe, while in China there were forerunners of rescue organizations in the Yangtze River area probably from the 13th century . Shipwrecks in Europe may have been seen by the poor coastal population as a welcome opportunity to loot the beach property and wreckage , and it is said to have been customary on some coasts to irritate ship's crews with beacons so that their ship would run aground. But there were also people who tried to help, but hardly had the technical aids to do so. The interest in a functioning rescue was promoted by three factors: the increasing maritime with the colonies increased the economic interest, the princes and landowners sat a beach guard in order to benefit themselves from the wreckage, and starting from England and the Netherlands emerged in the 1770s , the first human societies that spread the idea of ​​saving lives.

Organized coastal sea rescue

The first sea rescue station was set up by William Hutchinson at Formby Point near Liverpool and is recorded for 1776. In 1786 the Massachusetts Humane Society was founded in Boston , building the first rescue huts and stationing lifeboats on the coast . The company went into 1871 in the United States Live-Saving Service , which in 1915 was combined with the United States Revenue Cutter Service in the United States Coast Guard. When the British Admiralty rejected the quaker William Hillary's proposal to found a sea rescue organization, the latter founded the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck in 1824 , which in 1854 was named the Royal National Lifeboat Institution . Today it is one of the largest and most prominent NGOs and is represented with over 200 rescue stations in Great Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands. In the same year 1824 a dramatic rescue operation took place off the Dutch coast, in which six of the rescuers lost their lives. This was taken as an opportunity to set up organized rescue systems with rescue stations along the northern and southern Dutch coast, which were later merged to form the Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij. After the sinking of the emigrant ship Johanne off Spiekeroog in 1854, when people drowned in sight without any means of rescue, various private sea rescue organizations were formed on the German coast, which in 1865 merged to form the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People.

Manby mortar, Illustrated Newspaper 1843

Organized sea rescue was limited to the coast near the coast without telecommunications and motor-driven boats until the beginning of the 20th century. On some particularly dangerous coasts, it began with protective devices for the sea fragile, such as the shelters on Cape Cod , lighthouses and huts on Sable Island ( Graveyard of the Atlantic ) or even just pathways like on the Dominion Lifesaving Trail ( Graveyard of the Pacific ). Starting from the United Kingdom, where Henry Greathead built the first wooden unsinkable wooden boat ( The Orignal ) especially for sea rescue in 1789 , stations with special sea rescue boats were built on the coasts. The idea of ​​the line gun was first implemented with the manby mortar and, supplemented by the trouser buoy , enabled a connection to the wreck and a rescue option in a less dangerous way. The alarm was triggered by coastal surveillance, acoustic signals (bells, shots) or flares.

International cooperation and ocean rescue

At SOLAS 1913 it was decided to set up and support the International Ice Patrol , which in the respective summer months with several ships formed an international basis for preventive iceberg monitoring and rescue at sea in the arctic waters. In 1941 the Allies set up a network of eleven stationary weather ship stations in the North Atlantic, which, in addition to weather observation and navigation aid, was designed as a platform for the rescue of pilots and ship's crews and which remained in operation for another thirty years.

In 1924, sea rescuers from Denmark, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the USA met in London for the first International Lifeboat Conference and founded the International Lifeboat Federation (ILF), which in 1985 received the status of an advisory NGO at the IMO. The ILF was renamed the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) in 2007 and claims to have over 100 member organizations.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the establishment of radio communications by Guglielmo Marconi enabled communication with ships out of sight, and radio stations such as Norddeichradio were set up. In 1958, the Atlantic Merchant Vessel Emergency Reporting System ( AMVER ) was introduced for the North Atlantic shipping routes and expanded worldwide by 1971. The first COSPAS-SARSAT satellite was launched in 1982 , and GMDSS, a globally integrated system for ship traffic monitoring and sea alerting, has been in operation since the end of the 20th century .

Aircraft were used permanently by the coast guards for maritime surveillance from 1920 and from the early 1930s flying boats were used for sea rescue. During the Second World War, sea rescue units such as the Wehrmacht's sea ​​rescue squadrons were deployed, and helicopters were first used for rescue operations in 1944.

  • Weather ship stations in the North Atlantic

  • Coastal radio workplace Norddeich Radio, Museum for Communication Hamburg

  • US Coast Guard flying boats, Miami 1934

In 1979, European intellectuals around Bernard Kouchner , Heinrich Böll and Rupert Neudeck founded the initiative A Ship for Vietnam in the face of drowning Vietnamese boat refugees and inadequate state aid for rescue on the high seas . When NGOs and the United Nations criticized through the UNHCR and the IOM that the Frontex border guards did not take sufficient care of people in distress, newly founded private sea rescue organizations such as MOAS and Sea Watch came into being in 2014 and sent rescue ships to the Mediterranean.

Sacrifice among the rescuers

Henry Robinson and John Jackson, the two survivors of Eliza Fernley , around 1890

There were numerous fatalities among the rescuers during the rescue operations. The Royal National Lifeboat Association lists over 400. Among the most tragic cases were

  • In 1886 the losses on the two capsizing lifeboats Laura Janet from Southport and Eliza Fernley from Lancashire while trying to rescue the crew of the German Mexico . ( Southport Lifeboat Disaster )
  • In 1967, the rescue cruiser Adolph Bermpohl and his daughter boat Vegesack were damaged after the crew of a Dutch fishing boat had been successfully rescued from a storm at hurricane strength and found without a crew.
  • On the night of January 1 to January 2, 1995, the German rescue cruiser Alfried Krupp (station Borkum ) overturned west of Borkum on the way back from an operation. Two rescue men killed us.

Honor and memory

An example of a lifesaver award is the Italian Sea Rescue Medal . To honor the rescuers, memorials were erected at places where lifeboats and their crew were lost. There are also national memorials for rescuers who died in sea rescue.

See also

literature

  • Evans Clayton: Rescue at Sea: An International History of Lifesaving, Coastal Rescue Craft and Organizations . Conway Maritime Press 2003, ISBN 978-0-85-177934-8 .
  • Hans Georg Prager: Savior without glory: The adventure of sea emergency aid . Sutton 2012, ISBN 978-3-95400-024-1 .
  • Irini Papanicolopulu: The duty to rescue at sea, in peacetime and at war: A general overview . International Review of the Red Cross 2016, 98 (2), p. 491 ff.
  • Kristof Gombeer, Melanie Fink: Non-Governmental Organizations and Search and Rescue at Sea . Maritime Safety and Security Law Journal, 2018, No. 4.
  • Irini Papanicolopulu: International Law and the Protection of People at Sea . Oxford University Press 2018, ISBN 978-0-19-878939-0 .

Web links

Commons : Sea Rescue  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . March 28, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2019. - German translation in the Systematic Collection of Federal Law in Switzerland .
  2. ↑ International Convention of 1974 for the Protection of Human Life at Sea of ​​November 1, 1974 ( Federal Law Gazette 1979 II pp. 141, 142 , in three languages).
  3. ^ International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) . July 22, 1985. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  4. ↑ United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 98 . March 28, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2019. - German translation in the Systematic Collection of Federal Law in Switzerland
  5. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . Conway Maritime Press 2003, ISBN 0-85177-934-4 , p. 187.
  6. ↑ International Convention for the Uniform Determination of Individual Rules on Assistance and Rescue in Distress at Sea , transportrecht.de, accessed March 24, 2019
  7. ^ Text of the Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, Signed at London, January 20, 1914 [with Translation. ] . His Majesty's Stationery Office by Harrison and Sons. 1914.
  8. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 187 f.
  9. ↑ IMO and UNHCR: Rescue at Sea .
  10. ^ UNHCR: Background Note on the Protection of Asylum-Seekers and Refugees rescued at Sea
  11. ↑ Sea rescue in the Mediterranean . Bundestag.de. February 13, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  12. ^ Inken von Gadow-Stephani: Access to ports of refuge and other places of refuge for ships in distress. P. 236.
  13. ^ Inken von Gadow-Stephani: Access to ports of refuge and other places of refuge for ships in distress. P. 330.
  14. ↑ Kristof Gombeer, Melanie Fink: Non-Governmental Organizations and Search and Rescue at Sea . Maritime Safety and Security Law Journal, 2018 No. 4, p. 3.
  15. ^ Search and Rescue Contacts . JRCC Halifax, accessed January 14, 2019.
  16. ↑ Bundestag.de, legal consequences of a disability for sea rescue services , p. 9
  17. ↑ a b Legal consequences of a disability for sea rescue workers . Scientific Service of the Bundestag, November 11, 2016, p. 7 and 11.
  18. ↑ Irini Papanicolopulu: "The duty to rescue atsea, in peacetime andin war: A generaloverview" International Review of the RED Cross, 2017, p. 502
  19. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 190.
  20. ↑ Bundestag.de, Scientific Service, Registration of Rescue Ships , 2018, AZ WD 5 - 3000 - 124/18.
  21. ↑ Canadian Coast Guard , Canadian Coast Guard .
  22. ↑ gov.uk, About us
  23. ↑ Strategic Overview of Search and Rescue in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . UK Government, January 2017, p. 10 f.
  24. ↑ Lee Williams: The lifeboat rescue teams hanging by a thread . Guardian, June 19, 2016; accessed January 24, 2019.
  25. ↑ dco.uscg.mil, US Coast Guard Office of Search and Rescue (CG-SAR) .
  26. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 10 f.
  27. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 17 f.
  28. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 20
  29. ^ History . The Humane Society of Massachusetts, accessed January 23, 2019.
  30. ↑ 1824: Our foundation . Royal National Lifeboat Institution, accessed January 17, 2019.
  31. ↑ Hilton, Crowson et al. a .: A Historical Guide to NGOs in Britain: Charities, Civil Society and the Voluntary Sector since 1945 . Palgrave 2012, ISBN 978-0-230-30444-4 , p. 399.
  32. ↑ The history of KNRM , KNRM homepage, accessed March 29, 2020
  33. ^ German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People (DGzRS) . Society for Schleswig-Holstein History, accessed January 18, 2019.
  34. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 93 ff.
  35. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 49 ff.
  36. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 184 f.
  37. ↑ About IMRF . IMRF UK, accessed January 28, 2019.
  38. ^ History of the International Maritime Rescue Federation . Sutori, accessed January 28, 2019.
  39. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 188 f.
  40. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 181 f.
  41. ^ Lora Wildenthal: Humanitarianism in Postcolonial Contexts . In: Colonialism and Beyond: Race and Migration from a Postcolonial Perspective . Ed .: Bischoff and Engel, Lit-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-643-90261-0 , p. 104 f.
  42. ↑ Julia Kleinschmidt: The acceptance of the first "boat people" in the Federal Republic . Federal Agency for Civic Education, 2013.
  43. ^ Paolo Cuttitta: Repoliticization Through Search and Rescue? Humanitarian NGOs and Migration Management in the Central Mediterranean . Geopolitics, Vol. 23, 2018
  44. ↑ Daniela Irrera: Migrants, the EU and NGOs: The 'practice' of Non-Governmental SAR Operations . Romanian Journal of European Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2016, p. 27 ff.
  45. ^ Clayton Evans: Rescue at Sea . P. 56 ff.