Administrative Restrictions in Ports: Practice of Crew Rotations During COVID-19 Pandemic

The article describes changes in imposing administrative restrictions for crew rotations in ports worldwide under the ongoing pandemic COVID-19 situation. The first part of the article provides a brief overview of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on seafarers’ well-being, considering the key role of seafarers in providing international trade, maritime security, and protection of the environment. The second part of the article describes the national and regional experience in addressing COVID-19 under crew rotations; highlights the main tendencies of strengthening/easing restrictions in seaports. The most typical restrictive administrative measures in crew rotations include dockage during the crew change off the port, ensuring social distancing, strict health monitoring, and the negative coronavirus test result, proof of being quarantined or staying on board given period. Furthermore, international organizations were considered efforts to minimize the impact of the pandemic on the stability of crew changes in ports. The recommended measures primarily focus on simplifying and stabilizing the crew changes procedures, including the unification of rotation procedures, adopting multilateral global management in the sphere, effective information exchange, etc. Lack of consolidated information about all administrative restrictions world’s largest ports has become a complex issue. In that regard, the non-state actors play an essential role in the information support of seafarers. However, such efforts can be enhanced by adding imperative rules, like daily updating of information by governments and implementing the control system with a possibility of sanctions implementation in ship detentions under Port State Control procedures.