The International Maritime Organization’s Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic, or “FAL Convention” dates to the 1960s. It aims to facilitate maritime traffic by providing a degree of uniformity in the number and type of declarations required by public authorities when a maritime vessel enters a port. The convention limits the number of copies that can be requested and defines seven standard documents covering ship, cargo, passengers, but also dangerous goods, postal requirements and health requirements.
The information from these declarations has been sent electronically for many years through a combination of United Nations Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport (UN/EDIFACT) messages. Since 2016, the IMO has been working to integrate the notion of an electronic version of these documents into the convention and propose an electronic model to achieve this. The IMO has worked with the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT), the World Customs Organization (WCO) and the International Standards Organization (ISO) to create a clear, semantic data set to cover the needs of the FAL Convention, which will soon be added to the convention itself.