Lithuania accedes to Athens Protocol 2002
The Ambassador of Lithuania, H.E. Mrs Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė has met with IMO Secretary-General Sekimizu (10 March) to deposit the instrument of accession to the Protocol of 2002 to the Athens Convention Relating to Carriage of Passengers and their Luggage by Sea, 1974, IMO press release said.
The Convention was adopted at a Conference, convened in Athens in 1974 and was designed to consolidate and harmonize two earlier Brussels conventions dealing with passengers and luggage and adopted in 1961 and 1967 respectively. The Convention establishes a regime of liability for damage suffered by passengers carried on a seagoing vessel. It declares a carrier liable for damage or loss suffered by a passenger if the incident causing the damage occurred in the course of the carriage and was due to the fault or neglect of the carrier.
The Protocol was adopted on 1 November 2002 and entered into force on 23 April 2014. The Protocol introduces compulsory insurance to cover passengers on ships and raises the limits of liability. It also introduces other mechanisms to assist passengers in obtaining compensation, based on well-accepted principles applied in existing liability and compensation regimes dealing with environmental pollution.