The Agios Minos

By Attorney Douglas B. Stevenson

Director of the Center for Seafarers’ Rights of the

Seamen’s Church Institute of New York & New Jersey

On March 30, Captain Lampros Psarros, master of the Greek owned, Panamanian flagged cargo vessel radioed the Coast Guard to report that he and his crew of Greeks, Salvadorians and Panamanians had been anchored ten miles off Brunswick since February and that they were running out of food and water. Like seafarers who need a helping hand in Brunswick, the Coast Guard called on the Brunswick International Seafarers’ Center for help.

Fortunately for the Coast Guard, and more fortunately, for the stranded crew on the Agios Minas, the Brunswick International Seafarers’ Center rose to the challenge of providing for the crew’s immediate needs for food and water – and also for their emotional and legal well-being.

This was a dramatic case that demonstrated the critical importance of a port’s need for an effective seafarers’ center, and it also showed that a well-run center requires a team effort to accomplish its missions.

International law places an obligation on port nations to provide welfare, cultural, recreational and information facilities and services for visiting ship’s crews. In most maritime nations, this national obligation is satisfied by voluntary organizations, such as the Brunswick International Seafarers’ Center, instead of by governmental facilities. These organizations perform vital port services that are necessary for seafarers’ well being and consequently for the safe and efficient operation of their ships. In addition to providing a warm welcome to visiting ships’ crews, these non-profit voluntary organizations routinely handle crew welfare matters and exploitation incidents. The care, feeding and, in many cases, repatriating stranded seafarers often falls on non-profit voluntary organizations.

The challenges for a seafarers’ center are immense and complex. Therefore, it is essential that seafarers’ centers develop a team of specialists who can be called upon to help them when the needs arise. When the Brunswick International Seafarers’ Center assisted the M/V Agios Minas’ crew, it called upon a variety of institutions for help, including, but not limited to: the US Coast Guard, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, ship agents, pilots, the Georgia Port Authority, print and broadcast media, several local churches, local businesses, the US Marshal’s Service, maritime lawyers and the center for Seafarers’ Rights.

The Center for Seafarers’ Rights is a specialized legal aid and advocacy program for merchant seafarers. It is a division of the Seamen's Church Institute of New York and New Jersey. The Institute is an ecumenical, voluntary agency with roots in the Episcopal Church, which since 1834 has sought to promote merchant seafarers' dignity, well-being and professional training.

From its offices in the South Street Seaport district of New York City, the Center for Seafarers’ Rights (CSR) conducts three main programs of legal assistance, education and advocacy

In its legal assistance program, CSR provides free legal advice, counseling and referrals to needy merchant seafarers around the world, and to the port chaplains who serve them.

Seafarers are the most regulated of all workers. Practically every aspect of a seafarer’s work and leisure has been regulated. Laws and regulations seek to protect seafarers from their own improvidence, correct social evils and give rights and remedies when courts are powerless to do so. Although maritime law has made seafarers particularly sheltered legal figures (almost like widows and orphans), many of the worlds seafarers are beyond the protections of these laws and regulations because they do not have access to counsel and advice or to the courts where their rights might be protected.

CSR is a resource center for seafarers’ rights law. It maintains a library on this very specialized area of law. A law student intern last summer was quite surprised to discover that the CSR collection of seafarers rights laws was more extensive than any other library in New York City.

CSR also tries to help port chaplains coordinate their work with each other. Ships spend very little time in port. There is often too little time to solve a seafarers’ problem in any one port. CSR understands that trying to find justice for a seafarer can be a frightening and lonely experience. CSR supports seafarers’ centers’ staffs around the world with advice, support and referrals to help them find others to follow up on a problem after the ship leaves their port.

CSR’s second program is education. Seafarers themselves can be the best people to solve or prevent injustices. Too often, however, they just don’t know about the many laws that protect them. Therefore, CSR tries to help seafarers help themselves by informing them of their rights through booklets, articles and lectures. CSR also provides training for seafarers’ center staffs. Seafarers’ center staffs work in a very complicated environment addressing complex and diverse issues. They are not expected to be lawyers any more than they are expected to be physicians, psychologists or marine surveyors. But, to be effective in their work, they need to understand their legal environment. They need to learn how to use the industry resources that are available to help seafarers confront injustices.

We have developed a training workshop on seafarers’ rights for chaplains, center directors, volunteers and ship visitors. CSR has conducted training at Brunswick Seafarers’ Center in years past.

The third CSR program is “advocacy”. The CSR believes that it is not enough only to seek solutions to individual seafarers’ problems. The best corporate decisions, the best regulations, the best laws and the best international conventions are made only after taking into account all the facts. Therefore, the Center for Seafarers’ Rights spends a lot of time providing industry organizations, governmental bodies (both in the United States and abroad), and international organizations (such as the United Nations, The International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization) with the benefits of its experience so that they might improve conditions for seafarers.

The M/V Agios Minas case highlighted all of the main parts of CSR’s mission. Brunswick International Seafarers’ Center director Tom Matyok knew to call the CSR for advice and assistance as a result of the CSR training workshops that had been held in the center. CSR provided Tom and the ship’s crew with advice and assistance, including advancing funds to the crew to pay for their repatriation. CSR arranged for the crew to be represented without fee by the Haight Gardner Holland & Knight law firm. They were also assisted pro-bono by local Brunswick attorney John Ferrelle. CSR has used the case to bring the plight of abandoned crews to the attention of the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization.

Hopefully, with the combined efforts of the international community of nations, measures will be implemented to prevent seafarers from being abandoned far from their homes. Until that day arrives, we are all thankful that seafarers’ centers, like the Brunswick International Seafarers’ Center, will be there to protect them.