The Amoco Cadiz and the Work of the Institute. Seaborne trade calls for international agreement but it is not a matter that attracts much public attention. That is why, as Beattie has pointed out very clearly in his paper ‘Traffic Routing at Sea 1957–1977’ presented to the Institute on 14 December 1977, all the major steps taken to bring some order into the regulation of maritime traffic have been due to the initiative of mariners or maritime organizations. International action was only taken later, to give a legal sanction to such proposals as were felt to be necessary. In any case there was no international authority until 1958 when IMCO (the Inter-governmental Maritime Consultative Organization) took over the direction of maritime affairs between the International Safety of Life at Sea Conferences, and these were not convened at regular intervals. One can easily see that under these conditions progress was slow, depending as it did on either the initiative of seafaring people or on some turn of events that demanded a new approach.