The background to all this is the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, universally known as STCW, the set of standards established by the 1978 IMO conference that entered into force in 1984.
STCW was intended to lay down standards of training and competence for seafarers and this has been achieved successfully, with STCW substantially amended in 1995 and again in 2010 with the Manila Amendments that came into force in 2012.
As appears to be the case with the majority of international maritime conventions, fishing wasn’t part of the package.
