OREANDA-NEWS. October 08, 2010. Russian Ministry of Transport has prepared and published a draft government decree "On introduction for the ratification of the Convention of 2006 on Maritime Labor." Also, Russian Ministry of Transport issued a draft federal law on ratification of the Convention to be approved by the government and passed by the State Duma and inked by President Dmitry Medvedev.

The Maritime Labour Convention of 2006 was adopted on 94 th General Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva on 23 February 2006. The document is sometimes unofficially called Seafarers’ Bill of Rights.

To take effect, the Convention shall be ratified by 30 States, who own a total of one third of the world's merchant fleet. Currently, 10 states (46% of world tonnage fleet) have ratified the MLC, which means that one condition for the document to become effective has already been implemented. The last country to sign the bill was Canada. In addition it had been ratified by four largest states of flag - the Bahamas, Liberia, Marshall Islands and Panama, as well as Norway, Bosnia, Croatia, Bulgaria. In mid-February the MLC was signed by Spain, becoming the first EU member to ratify the Bill of Rights for Seafarers.