Introduction to the Bonn Agreement Counter-Pollution Manual

1.1 General

1.1.1 The Agreement for Co-operation in Dealing with Pollution of the North Sea by Oil and Other Harmful Substances (the Bonn Agreement) was adopted on 13 September 1983 in English, French and German versions, all of which are authentic. It entered into force on 1 September 1989. It has been modified by amendments agreed on 22 September 1989, which entered into force on 1 April 1994, and by amendments adopted on 22 September 2001, which will enter into force on the accession of Ireland to the Bonn Agreement. A consolidated text of the English version is in Chapter 29.

1.1.2 This Manual has been adopted by the Contracting Parties to the Bonn Agreement as guidance on cooperation:

a. when two or more Bonn Agreement countries (and the European Community (EC)) participate in a joint action to combat spillages of oil and/or other harmful substances on the sea of the North Sea Area;

b. in the surveillance of shipping in the North Sea Area to promote compliance with the international rules and standards against marine pollution.

1.2 The Aims of the Manual

1.2.1 The aims of the Manual are to enable the Contracting Parties:

to establish quickly, and to run effectively, the operational aspects of a multinational combating operation;

to assist the Contracting Parties in their choice of proper combating strategies, including various ways of responding to an incident (or the threat of an incident) involving oil and/or other chemicals spilled at sea;

to execute the agreed surveillance operations.

1.2.2 The Manual should also assist the on-scene Commanders in their execution of combating operations involving other countries.

1.2.3 Thus the Manual should be considered as a practical tool for use at various command levels in the combating organisations.

1.3 The Contents of the Manual

The Manual consists of three Volumes: Volumes I, II and III. The three volumes are subdivided into chapters as follows:

Volume 1 – Operations

Chapter 1: consists of the preface, the aim of the manual, the content of the manual and the updating of the manual

Chapters 2-8: Agreed Operations procedures for reporting, command structures etc.

Chapters 9-18: Description of national organisations

Chapter 19: Zones of joint responsibility and other bilateral/multilateral plans

Chapter 20: Inventory of Assessment Tools

Chapter 21: Directory of National Contact Points

Volume 2 - Strategy/Policy

Chapter 22: Policy strategy of pollution combating

Chapters 23: Response to oil pollution, various strategies and techniques

Chapter 24: Equipment

Chapters 25-26: Response to chemical pollution

Chapter 27-28: General policy/strategy: places of refuge and emergency towing guidelines

Volume 3 - Administration

Chapters 29-30: Bonn Agreement text and checklist for administrative/organisational aspects

Chapters 31-33: Guidelines for major spills sampling and analysis, reimbursement

1.4 Updating the Manual

The updating of the Manual according to information received from the Contracting Parties is the responsibility of the Bonn Agreement Secretariat. The Manual needs to be readily capable of being updated as the most recent information becomes available. It also needs to be evident to the recipient that he/she is in possession of the latest text. The principles for updating the manual are therefore as follows:

The Bonn Agreement Counter Pollution Manual is preceded by a Table of Contents. This is marked with the date of issue. Each Chapter in the Manual is shown with its Current Reference. Whenever any Chapter in one of the Volumes of the Manual is revised, the revised text will be circulated by e-mail to all Contracting Parties accompanied by a revised Table of Contents showing the Current Reference of each Chapter.

Each Chapter has a specific Current Reference indicated at the bottom left-hand corner of each page. For Chapters in the various Volumes, the Current Reference is made up of the volume number in question, followed by the Chapter number, followed by the year in which the Recommendation or Decision was approved by the Contracting Parties, followed by an indication of the official language (E = English, F = French).

For Chapters referring to a single Contracting Party, the Current Reference is made up of the Volume number followed by the Chapter number, followed by an abbreviation for the Contracting Party concerned, followed by the year and month when the information was made available. When information for a Contracting Party is missing, there is no Current Reference.

The pages of each Chapter are numbered at the bottom right-hand corner of each page with an indication of the total number of pages in that Chapter (e.g. 3/6 indicates that it is the third page out of a total 6 pages for that Chapter).

Each Contracting Party will be responsible for ensuring that the members of its services that need access to the Manual either down-load amendments from the BONN website, or are provided with the new material as it becomes available.

1.5 Date of Establishment

The Manual was established by the Contracting Parties during 1989-1991 and updated when and where necessary.