WISTA Brazil takes part of the 4th Maritime Law seminar hosted by the Directorate of Ports and Coasts

May 24, 2019

On Friday, May 17, WISTA Brazil joined the 4th Maritime Law Seminar, an annual event which is organized by the Directorate of Ports and Coasts.

The programme this year focused on Maritime Conventions, Marine Casualty Response and Insurance. WISTA Brazil is very proud and honored to have participated in the event, for the relevance of the topics covered and especially for the continued support of our association by the Director of Ports and Coasts, Vice Admiral Roberto.

During his keynote speech, the following was addressed:

“I would like to highlight the participation of women as speakers at the 4th Maritime Law Seminar, through WISTA Brazil, accounting for more than 30% of female speakers, as well as to congratulate all the ladies who are part of the Maritime community in this audience, especially this year dedicated to the ‘Empowerment of Women’ by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). I take this opportunity to launch the challenge: that seminars in the Maritime law field be represented with at least 30% of female speakers. According to the International Maritime Organization, currently, women account for only two percent of the 1,2 million seafarers in the world, and 94% of seamen are working in the cruise industry. Thus, the IMO in ‘Women in Maritime – IMO’s gender program’ has concentrated its efforts to support women to achieve a representation to be in line with the expectations of the 21st century.”

Fabiana Martins, WISTA Brazil Joint President , Partner at Siano & Martins Advogados Associados, gave a presentation on the Vicuña, a case in which her firm represented the ship’s interests: “One of the lessons learned from the Vicuña case is the need to have preparedness and insurance in place when an incident of this nature happens. In this regard it is impossible to escape the adhesion to the International Conventions (specially the IMO Conventions) as the only safe source to generate conditions for legitimate legal security.” 

The last presentation was given by Flavia Maia, WISTA Brazil Joint President, Managing Director at Gard Marine & Energy Limited, Escritório de Representação no Brasil Ltda, who highlighted the aspects relating to Marine Insurance, the participation of women in the ‘Maritime Cluster’ and how to create campaigns and educational programs to raise awareness of various job opportunities which relate directly or indirectly to the cluster: “The Maritime industry is less visible than other industries in this country, if we ‘Empower Women in the Maritime Industry’ we are both working towards UN SDG#5 and promoting our ‘Maritime Cluster’, i.e. making both Women and our Industry visible. I am pleased to announce that we will have a great opportunity coming up as we will host WISTA International AGM and Conference in 2021. We hope that by then we will have made some progress towards these goals.”