General Trends In Maritime And Transport Law 1929 2009

This book examines the concept of port state jurisdiction in the context of international maritime law. In particular the book focuses on situations where port states have used their jurisdiction over visiting foreign-flagged vessels to apply unilateral domestic law, as compared with the internationally-agreed standards enforced by regional port state control organisations. To illustrate the legal issues involved three recent pieces of legislation are analysed in detail: the United States' Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act 2010, the EU's liability insurance directive of 2009, and Australia's Fair Work Act 2009. Key issues include the legality of port states’ attempts to regulate aspects of a vessel’s structure or equipment, or even certain activities that may take place before a vessel’s arrival in port. The author argues that examples of unilateral measures being imposed by way of port state jurisdiction are growing, and that without active protests from flag states this concept will continue to expand in scope. As international law currently presents very few restrictions on the actions of ambitious port states, such developments may have a significant impact on the future of international maritime regulation.​

In 2007, the International Max Planck Research School for Maritime Affairs together with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), both based in Hamburg, decided to establish an annual lecture series, the "Hamburg Lectures on Maritime Affairs" - giving distinguished scholars and practitioners the opportunity to present and discuss recent developments in this field. The present volume - the second in the series - collects eight of the lectures held in 2009 and 2010 by David Joseph Attard, Lucius Caflisch, Beate Czerwenka, Lars Gorton, Francesco Munari, Kyriaki Noussia, Peter Wetterstein and Wolfgang Wurmnest.

Uniformity of Transport Law through International Regimes addresses the problem of uniformity of transport law and the potential solutions at international and EU levels. It concerns transport conventions and other instruments dealing mainly with carriage of goods by sea and multimodal transport as well as examining the Rotterdam Rules as one of the solutions towards uniformity in carriage of goods law. The discussion on international uniformity in transport law is complemented by an examination of regional harmonization in the context of EU law-making and jurisprudence in the field of international transport. The comparison between international and regional regimes reveals the complexities in application and interpretation of the certain transport conventions which is detrimental to achieving uniformity.

​This book presents a study on civil liability for accidents at sea, with a focus on the interests of parties that are not contractually participating in the maritime enterprise. Shipping and the maritime offshore industry are among the most international businesses in the world, and the operation of ships and facilities at sea can involve very different interests in a wide variety of relationships. Although there is an international legal framework that covers the most frequent types of cases, questions remain regarding the interplay of international and national legislation. Addressing those questions, the first part of this study analyses the rules and the limits of international regulation applicable at sea, namely regarding compensation for pollution damage. The second part focuses on the jurisdictional rules and conflict-of-law rules that may be used to deal with cases beyond the scope of international legislation, in accordance with the law of the sea.​

Criminal Jurisdiction over Perpetrators of Ship-Source Pollution: International Law, State Practice and EU Harmonisation provides a thorough analysis of criminal jurisdiction over the perpetrators of ship-source pollution. Criminal sanctions for discharge violations committed by sea-going vessels represent an issue of critical concern in the field of International Law, given the many devastating pollution cases which have occurred at sea, and the multitude of complications inherent in the criminal prosecution of the perpetrators of these pollution cases. The varying substantive and geographical reach of any given State’s criminal law poses unique challenges in prosecution, addressed in a comprehensive discussion which includes limitations posed by the UN Law of the Sea Convention. Additionally, consequences arising from the potential conflict between the EU harmonization measures within the field, and UNCLOS are detailed in the monograph. Lawyers, academics, and legal researchers, will appreciate Criminal Jurisdiction over Perpetrators of Ship-Source Pollution: International Law, State Practice and EU Harmonisation as a thorough source of information on the existing rules and practice in criminal cases involving pollution violations from ships.