{"id":945,"date":"2025-06-03T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/?p=945"},"modified":"2026-06-10T14:18:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T14:18:40","slug":"g-vs-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/?p=945","title":{"rendered":"G. v Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h6><strong>Board for Maritime Investigation, G. v Belgium, Nr. 3109, 3 June 2025<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>Following severe budget cuts, the Belgian Ministry of Defence could only provide the Belgian State-owned oceanographic vessel <em>RV Belgica<\/em> with three military crew members. To operate the vessel \u2013 which sails under a Belgian flag and under Navy operational command \u2013 a public tender was awarded to a French operator (G), which assumed responsibility for management and crewing. Following complaints about labour conditions, Belgian authorities identified serious breaches of the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention (MLC), revoked the vessel\u2019s MLC certificate and eventually prohibited the vessel from sailing on 27 June 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>G. challenged this decision, arguing that the Belgica fell outside the MLC\u2019s scope as a naval auxiliary and therefore benefited from the exemption in MLC art. II(4). Observing that the vessel could not meet the definition of a warship under art. 29 UNCLOS (given the composition of its crew), the Board rejected this argument and held that, under MLC art. II (5) and art. 4 \u00a73 of the Belgian Law of 13 June 2014, in cases of doubt regarding a vessel\u2019s inclusion, the determination rests with the flag State\u2019s competent authority after consultation with shipowner and seafarer representatives. In casu, the Belgian Directorate-General for Shipping (the competent authority), after consultation with <em>Commission paritaire<\/em> 316, had validly determined that the vessel fell within the MLC regime, given its predominantly civilian crew and minimal military complement. G., designated as the \u201cshipowner,\u201d was therefore bound by its obligations under the 2006 MLC. The sailing ban was upheld and the appeal dismissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Arrest-Belgica-ANONIMISER.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button\" download>Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Board for Maritime Investigation, G. v Belgium, Nr. 3109, 3 June 2025 Following severe budget cuts, the Belgian Ministry of Defence could only provide the Belgian State-owned oceanographic vessel RV Belgica with three military crew &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[110,112,108,111],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":949,"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilbc.be\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}