Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa to be Awarded IMO’s International Maritime Prize

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) informed the Nippon Foundation via the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on July 3 that it has decided to award the Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa its 2014 International Maritime Prize for his many contributions to the IMO’s activities. The award ceremony is scheduled to take place at the IMO headquarters in London on November 23. The International Maritime Prize was established in 1980, and is awarded annually by the IMO Council to the individual or organization judged to have made the most significant contribution to the work and objectives of the organization. Mr. Sasakawa is to receive the prize in recognition of his contribution to human capacity building via programs at the World Maritime University, IMLI, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and other institutions, which have produced more than 1,000 graduates from 128 countries, as well as his many years of work in areas including maritime safety in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore and the establishment of the Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control in the Asia-Pacific Region (the “Tokyo MoU”). He is the second Japanese national to receive the prize, after Yoshio Sasamura, former assistant secretary-general of the IMO, in 1992. For more information regarding the International Maritime Prize, please visit the IMO website.