Ahmedabad: Indian Navy and coast guard officials will now take lessons on laws of sea and maritime at the Gujarat National Law University for better understanding of the changing international scenario.
The first of its kind three-week certificate course commencing on March 03, 2013, would help officers acquire understanding on the issues and challenges in the major seafaring nations.
It will also help them get a broad overview of the law of sea regime and its importance in the 21st century for major maritime nations.
“The course will run from March 3 for three weeks in 2013,” GNLU director Bimal N Patel said.
“It is the first of its kind course for the Navy and India Coast Guard (ICG) officials,” he said.
“We will invite Judge Advocate General (JAG) Army and JAG Air Force to nominate few officers so all the integrated defence forces can enrich from the course by intensive participation and interactions,” Patel said.
The certificate course covering wide spectrum of maritime issues aims to help officers render their duties as legal advisor on concerning issues to the Navy and maritime institutions, operations and commanders at sea.
It will also make them understand the evolving developments in these fields and to provide theoretical and practical legal input to policy-making institutions and actors of navy and relevant governmental agencies, a university official said. “If we look at security in piracy then we shall be talking about International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law during the course,” Patel said.
“It will enable our officers to handle any operation on the sea or coast after being equipped with knowledge of law, whenever there is convergence of private international or public international laws in maritime transportation,” he said.
During the course, the officers would identify and understand international maritime offences and applicable legal regime so as to effectively apply the knowledge in dealing with maritime offences, he said.
Also, they would understand the existing laws and procedures concerning mercantile traffic and collision incidents at sea so as to use in a comprehensive manner understanding of the collision liability issues in actual practice, Patel said.
The corps would understand and shall be able to provide application of maritime legislation and constabulary functions at sea, he said.
The officers will be scheduled to pay visit to public and private ports in Gujarat, ICG Headquarters, shipping companies, among others (as part of the course) on weekends or after the training session, a university official said.
PTI
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