The bewilderment with which vessel owners, operators and P. & I. Clubs often view maritime disputes, and in particular the arrest of vessels, in the GCC States1 is understandable: none of the legal systems in the region falls within either the familiar common law or civil law moulds and they have characteristics of substantive, and especially procedural, law which are all their own.

The laws of the GCC member States are based on the “Shari’a” (Islamic law), which is supplemented by government-made laws where necessary. Some of the countries are more conservative than others in their interpretation of the Shari’a, and of the extent to which government-made laws may supplement it, with Saudi Arabia representing the more “traditional” outlook and the other States being generally more “liberal”. However, the Shari’a contains little or no guidelines for the arrest of vessels and, as a result, the relevant laws and regulations in the region are provided by government-made laws and the practice of the courts and relevant authorities.

None of the GCC States has ratified the 1952 Brussels Convention relating to the Arrest of Seagoing Ships2, which still forms the basis of the law of arrest of vessels in many maritime countries. However, apart from Saudi Arabia, all the GCC countries have reasonably comprehensive maritime codes3. These are broadly similar in respect of arrest of vessels and will enable us (for the purposes of this article at least) to treat those jurisdictions (“the countries of the Codes”) together. In Saudi Arabia, the relevant law is found in the Commercial Court Law of 1931 (“the CCL”). We must therefore consider the position in Saudi Arabia separately from that in the countries of the Codes. It should, however, be noted that none of the legal systems under discussion recognizes the concept of judicial precedent, and there is no law reporting in the region. Therefore, the interpretation of a statutory provision may vary from court to court and even from case to case, and a lawyer advising clients must draw on his experiences relating to the judges who may sit on the case and their attitudes to certain problems. It should in addition be stressed that what follows constitutes a broad overview, and not