UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine handed over ILO legal gap analysis on the ILO Maritime Labour Convention to the Minister of Infrastructure

At the UN’s meeting with the Minister of Infrastructure Oleksander Kubrakov and his office, Osnat Lubrani, UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine, outlined a wide scope of issues that the UN and its Agencies, Funds and Programmes can collaborate on with the Ministry for Infrastructure to boost progress on achieving SDGs. These included sustainable transport, smarter and greener infrastructure and better protection of workers in the maritime industry. The latter was given a special focus as Ukraine strives to ratify the MLC – the ILO flagship Convention that ensures comprehensive worldwide protection of the rights of seafarers and creates a level playing field for countries and shipowners.

National Coordinator of International Labour Organization in Ukraine, Sergiy Savchuk, was also present at the meeting.

The meeting was a crowning moment of a deep review of Ukrainian legislation by the ILO designated legal experts. The review identifies legal gaps vis-à-vis the MLC and offers legal solution to bridge them so that Ukraine can effectively comply with the MLC provisions in law and in practice. The review was prepared following the Ministry’s request to the ILO for technical assistance.

It is expected that the MLC ratification package, inclusive of the draft-law that amends the national legislation to conform to this ILO instrument will soon be prepared for adoption.