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504 Travaux préparatoires: United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crimeright of a vessel to fly their flags and authorization to take appropriate measures.Such designation shall be notified through the Secretary-General to all other StatesParties within one month of the designation. 48“7. A State Party that has reasonable grounds 49 to suspect that a vessel isengaged 50 in the smuggling of migrants by sea and is without nationality 51 or may beassimilated to a vessel without nationality, may board and search the vessel. 52 If evidenceconfirming the suspicion is found, that State Party 53 shall take appropriate measures54 in accordance with relevant domestic and international law. 55 ”Notes by the Secretariat4. At its eleventh session, the Ad Hoc Committee considered, finalized and approvedarticle 7 bis, as amended. The last amendments are reflected in the final text of the protocol,as included in the report of the Ad Hoc Committee (A/55/383, sect. IV, draft resolution,annex III), that was submitted to the General Assembly for adoption pursuant toresolution 54/126 of 17 December 1999.5. It should be noted that the representative of Denmark requested that the report ofthe Ad Hoc Committee on its eleventh session should reflect the position of his countryin relation to article 8, paragraph 2, of the protocol. According to Danish constitutionallaw, a State party wishing to take appropriate measures in accordance with that paragraphwith regard to vessels of Danish nationality or registry would have to request authorizationfrom Denmark and could not act of its own accord. Denmark indicated that it wouldexamine such requests on a case-by-case basis. The representative of Canada indicated thathis country, according to current practice, did not authorize other States to board vesselsof Canadian nationality or registry. However, upon request under the protocol, Canadaundertook not to object to such action, provided that the action taken was consistent withthe protocol. The representative of Spain requested that the report of the Ad Hoc Committee48Pursuant to a proposal of the United States (see A/AC.254/L.195), the informal consultations held during the ninthsession of the Ad Hoc Committee recommended the addition of the following words: “Such designation shall be notifiedthrough the Secretary-General to all other States Parties within one month of the designation.”49The informal consultations held during the ninth session of the Ad Hoc Committee recommended replacing the words“When there are reasonable grounds” at the beginning of this provision with the words “A State Party that has reasonablegrounds”. One delegation expressed concern that this might make the assessment of “reasonable grounds” a subjective matterfor the State involved. Other delegations pointed out that, since the provision dealt only with the boarding of a statelessvessel, only one State would be in a position to make this determination in any event.50At the informal consultations held during the ninth session of the Ad Hoc Committee, some delegations proposedreplacing the word “engaged” with the word “involved” (see also footnotes 32, 36 and 39).51The informal consultations held during the ninth session of the Ad Hoc Committee recommended deleting wordingthat would have determined the nationality of the vessel “in accordance with the law of the sea” as unnecessary (seeA/AC.254/4/Add.1/Rev.5, article 7 bis, paragraph 6). One delegation opposed the deletion on the basis that the additionalwords “in accordance with the law of the sea” provided greater certainty.52The informal consultations held during the ninth session of the Ad Hoc Committee recommended revising this sentenceby replacing the words “shall board” with the words “may board” and consequently deleting the words “as necessary”,and by replacing the word “inspect” with the word “search”, subject to the concerns about language concordancenoted with respect to paragraph 2 (b) of this article. The Islamic Republic of Iran requested that its preference for the term“inspect” should be noted at this point.53This proposal was made by Australia at the informal consultations held during the ninth session of the Ad HocCommittee.54At the informal consultations held during the ninth session of the Ad Hoc Committee, it was noted that the words“measures” and “action” appeared interchangeably in this context throughout the protocol. It was recommended that the term“measures” should be used throughout and the Secretariat was requested to make the substitution, subject to subsequentapproval by the Ad Hoc Committee. Other such substitutions were made in article 7 bis, paragraphs 2 (c), 3 and 5, and inarticle 7 ter, paragraphs 4 and 5.55At the informal consultations held during the ninth session of the Ad Hoc Committee, it was recommended to amendthis provision based on the proposal submitted by the United States (A/AC.254/L.195). The original language of this provisionwas derived, as already noted, from paragraph 16 of the IMO interim measures.