LISTING OF FLAGS

WHITE  LIST

           The White List identifies the countries that have demonstrated a plan of full compliance with the STCW Convention and Code as revised in 1995. The White List was developed by an unbiased panel of "competent persons" at the IMO. The criteria used to develop the list included what system of certification (licensing) each administration would have, the process of revalidation for certificates, training center oversight, port state control, and flag state control.

       Since there is a white list, it would stand to reason that any country not on the white list could be considered "black listed". This is not the case. There is no actual black list although very often that is how non-compliant countries are described.

Port State Control and Flag State Control both play a role in handling a non-white listed country. For instance, if a vessel is flagged by a non-white list country, when it desires to enter a white list port, it can be denied entry, detained or inspected vigorously.

On the other hand, if a mariner has a Certificate of Competency (license) from a non-white list country, they will most likely be denied a Certificate of Equivalency, they will be rejected as a viable manning solution for white list flagged vessels, and their sea time and training may either be highly scrutinized or not accepted at all towards a Cof C from a white list country. 

       The topic of measuring flag state performance was first introduced by the oldest PSC regime, the Paris MoU and was later adopted by the Tokyo MoU Each year, the“Black/Grey/White List (BGW-list) is published which is compiled using a specific method to classify registries into three groups – black, grey and white – where blacklisted flags perform worse than average and white listed flags perform better. In order to classify for any preferred treatment, a registry needs to be on the white list.