Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
The 37th Comité Maritime International Conference: a report
Stephen Girvin *
Our object was to give to the sea, which is the natural tie between the nations, the benefit of a uniform law, which will be rational, deliberated, equitable in its inception and practical in its text. We have considered that in our work, the shipowner, the merchant, the underwriter, the average adjuster, the banker, the parties directly interested should have the leading part: that the task of the lawyer was to discern what in this maritime community was the general feeling, which, among these divergent interests, is common to all; to discern also which of the various solutions is the best; to contribute to the common work his science and his experience, but that ultimately the lawyer should hold the pen and that the man of practice should dictate the solutions.
1
The Comité Maritime International (CMI)2
met in Conference in Singapore from 12 to 16 February this year under its current President, Patrick Griggs.3
The purpose of this paper is to review and report on developments at the Singapore Conference,4
the second to be held in the Asia-Pacific region5
and the first Conference following the centenary Conference of the CMI which was held in Antwerp from 9 to 13 June 1997.
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*
Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Nottingham. As most of the sessions at Singapore were held in parallel, this Report necessarily reflects the attendance of this writer at the sessions on Issues of Transport Law. I am especially grateful to Paul Myburgh (University of Auckland) for his comments on a draft of this paper. The usual caveat applies.
1. The words of Louis Franck, one of the CMI’s founders, cited by William Birch Reynardson, “Unification of International Maritime Law. The Work of the Comité Maritime International”, in Demetrios Markianos: In Memoriam
(Athens, 1988), 318–319.
2. See Leslie Scott & Cyril Miller, “The Unification of Maritime and Commercial Law through the Comité Maritime International” (1947) 1 International L.Q. 482; Francesco Berlingieri, “The Work of the Comité Maritime International: Past, Present, and Future” (1983) 57 Tulane L.R. 1260; Francesco Berlingieri, “The Role of the CMI for the International Unification of Maritime Law”, in A.von Ziegler & T.Burckhardt (eds), Internationales Recht auf see und Binnengewässern-Festschrift für Walter Müller
(Zürich, 1993), 167; Frank L. Wiswall, Jnr., Comité Maritime International
(Antwerp, 1997).
3. A former Senior Partner of Ince & Co., Patrick Griggs is the first President from the UK since the tenure of Sir Henry Duke, the then President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, in 1922. He was elected President at the CMI Assembly, 14 June 1997: CMI News Letter 3/1997, 19. See also Phil Parry, “CMI President seeks more participation”, Lloyd’s List,
24 June 1998. Patrick Griggs is also Secretary and Treasurer of the British Maritime Law Association (BMLA). See <www.bmla.org.uk>.
4. This report does not purport to represent the views of the CMI. It will be evident, however, that it draws very heavily on the reports circulated for consideration at the plenary session held on 16 February.
5. See Matthew Flynn, “CMI Meeting a first for Singapore”, Lloyd’s List,
6 February 2001, which refers to the Conference as “the first ever meeting in Asia”. The first meeting in the Asia-Pacific region in fact took place in Sydney (in 1994).
6. See Patrick Griggs, “CMI Centenary Conference: June 1997” [1997] IJSL 54; “CMI Centenary Conference” [1997] IJSL 160.
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