Master’s duty to rescue persons at sea – the challenges

Captain John Owen, of London FOIL and Bernica Marine Consultants, discusses the rules around rescuing migrants and particularly refugees

Modern communications, news and social media has brought an ever-changing world into our homes in ways that only a few decades ago would have been unthinkable. However we might have hoped that the chilling images on our screens right now had been condemned to a history long before many of us were born. Yet refugees, stowaways, men, women and children from nations at war or impoverished by famine, moving around the globe looking for a better place to settle, is not a new story. Every year, thousands of migrants and asylum seekers undertake perilous journeys at sea in search of safety, refuge from persecution, or a better life with greater economic certainty.