Maritime

The Law of the Sea

The Law of the Sea quickly established itself as the standard work on the subject: authoritative, balanced and readable.

This new Third Edition has been completely revised and updated to cover the many developments that have occurred since publication of the second edition in 1988, among the most notable of which is the entry into force in 1994 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Written so as to be intelligible to all concerned with maritime affairs, the book has proved particularly valuable to international lawyers and those taking specialist courses in the law of the sea and maritime studies.

The aim of the third edition of this book remains broadly the same as that of the first two editions, namely to provide an introduction to the law of the sea, surveying not only the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea but also the customary and conventional law which supplements it.

Since the previous edition of this book was published in 1988, much has happened in the law of the sea. Most notably, the 1982 Convention has entered into force and is now widely ratified. In addition a number of important multilateral treaties have been concluded (including the two Agreements of 1994 and 1995 relating to the implementation of the Convention), there have been several judgments by international courts and tribunals, and there has been a vast amount of bilateral treaty-making, national legislation and other forms of State practice. This new edition has been completely revised and extensively rewritten, although the basic structure of the book remains unchanged.

This book is concerned with the public international law of the sea - that is to say, with the rules and principles that bind States in their international relations concerning maritime matters. Accordingly, it does not discuss, except incidentally, the rules of private maritime law, which concern such matters as marine insurance, carriage of goods by sea and maritime liens; nor does it provide a survey of the municipal law of the United Kingdom, or of any other country, relating to the law of the sea. Furthermore, it is concerned with the laws of peace and not with the matters that have traditionally been considered under the heading of the laws of war, and consequently topics such as maritime neutrality and prize law fall beyond its scope. Nonetheless, this leaves a considerable body of law within the purview of the book.

The treatment of the subject falls into two broad divisions. First, we take each of the major maritime zones recognized in contemporary international law, and explain the rules presently applicable to that zone against the background of the main stages of the historical development of those rules. Increasingly, however, the law of the sea is being developed along functional, rather than zonal, lines. For example, whereas the 1958 United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea concentrated mainly on producing a framework of rules governing States' rights and duties in the territorial sea, continental shelf and high seas, many of the more recent international agreements have been concerned not with particular zones but with particular uses of the seas, such as pollution, fishing (which was in fact also the subject of one of the conventions produced by the 1958 conference) and navigation. We have, therefore, thought it necessary, in order to bring together the many rules of international law relating to the various uses of the seas, to provide separate surveys of each of the main activities carried out in the seas. These functional surveys appear in the later chapters of the book.

Although the international law of the sea is in principle limited in its application to States and other entities having international personality, it has immediate significance for individuals. Thus, for instance, individuals may be arrested in coastal waters on charges of illegal fishing, or find that their ships are denied.

Admiralty in a Nutshell, 5th (Nutshell Series)

Authoritative text covers maritime jurisdiction and substantive law. Explores maritime property liens and the seaman’s employment contract, wages, and compromise of claims. Discusses marine insurance, towage and pilotage, salvage, and general average. Addresses maritime tort law, collision law, worker injury claims, wrongful death, and platform injuries. Also covers sovereign immunity; joint and several liability, indemnity, and contribution; liability limitations; and jurisdiction and procedure in maritime claims.

Alive on the Andrea Doria!: The Greatest Sea Rescue in History

One half-century later, the catastrophic ramming of the MS Stockholm into the Italian luxury liner the SS Andrea Doria in 1956 is relived in this candid, heartrending account. Author Pierette Domenica Simpson, who, with her grandparents, survived the tragedy off the shoals of Nantucket, shares the human and technical aspects of what has become known as the greatest sea rescue in history. As only an eyewitness can do, the author presents survivors' recollections in dramatic vignettes that meticulously re-create a horrific event-one that could have been another Titanic. Both poor immigrants and wealthy travelers give their accounts of ultimate despair and infinite elation after staring at their own reflections in the black ocean that night and seeing death stare back. Equally dramatic are the revelations of new facts exposed by nautical experts from two continents facts that solve the "mystery" of who was to blame for this most improbable collision between two ships on the open seas.

Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death, and Survival in the Merchant Marine (Blue Jacket Books) (Blue Jacket Books)

Robert Frump s Until the Sea Shall Free Them has an unusual setting: off the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, in February 1983. There the merchant vessel Marine Electric, a coal carrier converted from a World War II-vintage Liberty ship, participated in the rescue of a fishing boat caught in a fierce storm, only to be herself overwhelmed by the raging sea. Though only 30 miles off the coast, the Marine Electric had no chance to survive, and heroic Coast Guard helicopter pilots and Navy rescue divers were barely able to save a handful of survivors. Frump, a former reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, meticulously reconstructs the sinking, along with the investigation and litigation that followed in its wake. In attempting to evade corporate liability for the sinking, the ship s owners put the blame on faulty loading and preparation for the storm by the former chief mate, Bob Cusick, who was one of the survivors. The corporation devoted immense resources to substantiating its claims, hiring marine salvage specialists for an exhaustive survey of the wreck, and naval architects to construct an elaborate theory of the accident. The theory soon began to unravel, however, due to the determination of then-Philadelphia Inquirer editor Gene Roberts, who decided to have his newspaper investigate the whole issue of marine safety and turned loose Frump and other reporters on the story. Frump s book recounts in some detail how the journalists penetrated layers of industry secrecy and the closed ranks of seamen fearing for their jobs to establish that old Liberty ships were virtual serial sinkers. In this page-turner, Frump starts from a single sinking to expose weaknesses in the entire system of maritime safety and sketchy reforms that ultimately took out of service many of the old unseaworthy Liberty ships. Washington Post book review by John Prados

Farwell's Rules Of The Nautical Road (U.S. Naval Institute Blue & Gold Professional Library)

The History Of Pirates

The History of Pirates traces piracy from the seas of antiquity to the New World and beyond. It is a thorough, authoritative and memorable portrait of the fascinating world of pirates. Detailed maps bear vivid testimony to the far-ranging exploits of these capricious, sometimes charismatic, and frequently bloodthirsty sea-dogs and highwaymen of the oceans.

Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish

Coastal and Ocean Management Law in a Nutshell (Nutshell Series)

Coastal and Ocean Management Law in a Nutshell surveys the continually evolving law of the coasts and oceans. The material is unique because it does not analyze the law of a discreet substantive field of law, but instead looks at the law in relation to a place the coasts and oceans. These areas are viewed from common law and modern regulatory perspectives, from the federal and state levels, and from an international perspective. Starting with principles of the common law concerning the public trust doctrine and ownership of waters and coastal lands, the book moves to modern issues of beach access, coastal development and regulation of coastal resources, and the Coastal Zone Management Act. Offshore resource management issues, including outer continental shelf oil development and mining, fisheries, historic wrecks, navigation and pollution control, and protection of marine species are also surveyed. Finally, recent developments in the law of the sea and the United States? ocean law and policy responses are reviewed.

Admiralty and Maritime Law: Admiralty and Maritime (Hornbook Series Student Edition)

This Hornbook provides an overview of the history and traditions underlying todayÂ’s admiralty and maritime law. Topics covered include the law of the sea, jurisdiction, maritime torts, seamenÂ’s remedies, and workersÂ’ compensation as it applies to the maritime setting. Addresses the carriage of goods, towage, charter parties, marine pollution, and marine insurance, including general average. Also explores the aspects of shipping law, including the distinctive admiralty rules.

Lost At Sea

In February 1983, two crabbing vessels set out from port in Alaskan waters at the peak of crabbing season. Filled to the brim with crab pots, both ships, the Americus and the Altair, were considered state-of-the-art for the industry: each only a few years old, equipped with thousands of dollars' worth of lifesaving equipment. Neither ship returned to port, and none of their 14 crew members was ever seen again. It was the worst commercial fishing accident in America's history.

In Lost at Sea, Patrick Dillon examines how the Americus/Altair disaster is indicative of the problems with American fishing, an industry that annually tops the list of "Most Dangerous Occupations," and what has been done in the tragedy's aftermath. During his research, including a season as a crew member aboard a fishing boat, Dillon encountered a murky sea full of men fiercely opposed to government regulations, an industry that always expects to do business the same way--its own way--and, conversely, an American government that prodded its fishing industry into possibly unsafe practices in order to compete with foreign fishing powers. Dillon interviews dozens of friends, coworkers, and family members of the lost fishermen, and the scenes that describe the small Washington town of Anacortes, which hosted the lost fleet and is almost completely reliant on fishing for livelihood, are touching. In the end, despite years of hearings and probes into the fishing industry, not much has changed, Dillon reports. Every year a certain number of men go out into rough seas, and every year a smaller number of them return home, as the industry remains largely free of regulation. --Tjames Madison

On February 3, 1983, the men aboard Americus and Altair, two state-of-the-art crabbing vessels, docked in their home port of Anacortes, Washington, prepared to begin a grueling three-month season fishing in the notorious Bering Sea. Eleven days later, on Valentine's Day, the overturned hull of the Americus was found drifting in calm seas, with no record of even a single distress call or trace of its seven-man crew. The Altair vanished altogether. Despite the desperate search that followed, no evidence of the vessel or its crew would ever be found. Fourteen men were lost. And the tragedy would mark the worst disaster in the history of U.S. commercial fishing.

With painstaking research and spellbinding prose, acclaimed journalist Patrick Dillon brings to life the men who were lost, the dangers that commercial fishermen face, the haunting memories of the families left behind...and reconstructs the intense investigation that ensued, which for the first time exposed the dangers of an industry that would never again be the same.