ABSTRACT
In the field of maritime affairs, private interests, governments, and international organizations --non-governmental as well as governmental -- found the creation of a specialized maritime agency to be the most expedient way of approaching the problems with which this rapidly advancing and at times, dangerous, industry was faced. Buttressed by strongly expressed domestic lobbies, member governments usually adopted international regulations only when faced with the most dire need -- only after significant catastrophes, or when internationally adhered to standards were to everyone's long-run economic advantage. The maritime industries were largely satisfied, the dominant shipping nations were largely satisfied, and no one else was terribly interested in what, a rather obscure sounding intergovernmental organization named Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO) was doing. But by the mid-1960s, trends occurring throughout the international system began to force an alteration of the character of IMCO as an essentially intergovernmental and consultative organization with its own well insulated task domain.
