International Commercial Maritime Law

International
Commercial Maritime
Law

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
International commercial maritime law..................................................................................3
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
International law is also known as the public international law which is a body of legal
rules, standards and norms which apply between different sovereign states and the entities which
are legally recognised as the international actors. It is the collection of set rules which governs
the relations between the states. Maritime law is an important aspect of international law which
involves laws, treaties and conventions which governs the private maritime business and other
matters of nautical like shipping or the offences which occurs in open water. In the developed
countries, the law of maritime follows the separate code and has the independent jurisdiction
from the national laws (Karlis, 2018). The United Nations, through the International Maritime
Organisation have issued many conventions which are enforced by navies and the coast guards
of the countries which have signed the treaty. This essay report shall deal with the necessity to
reform international law in order to prevent registration of ships on the open registries. Further it
will include redefining the concept of genuine link as an option of reform.
MAIN BODY
International commercial maritime law
The international maritime legislation regulates the registration, inspection procedure and
license for the ships and the shipping contracts so that there is no room for legal consequences.
The inter governmental maritime consultative organisation is a body which is responsible to
ensure that the international convention on maritime are kept updated timely and the new
agreements are formed as and when needed.
The international law on maritime mainly stands on four pillars which includes law of
sovereignty of the nations, law of freedom of contract, law of freedom of high seas and the legal
personality of ship. As every country is sovereign in its political boundary where the law applies,
and as a general rule, each of the other three law is dependent on this legislation (Basaran, 2017).
Commercial shipping is one of the business aspect of Maritime industry. As in the
international trade, the goods and services are exchanged between different countries and
involves in exports and imports of many things. There are thousands of merchants ships which
are working currently worldwide. It is important to have the registration of ships and the origin
of registration of ships have been in 1760 and the aim to register the ships have evolved in
United Kingdom dramatically which have been adopted keeping in mind the economic and

social circumstances. In UK, the Merchant Shipping Act of 1995 deals with the registration of
ships. Part II of this legislation defines legal framework relating to British ship registration
system and the details are mentioned in Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships) Regulations
of 1993. Prior to the enforcement of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1995, since 1761 till its
enforcement, the registration system have relied completely on the different organisations which
are made by the local registers which are kept in each port an are operated by the customs
officers. But the traces of this old system is still retained in new process as the ships which are
registered under Part I and II of register are allocated with the port of their choice. However, the
allocation is deprived nowadays of the legal effect (Shekar Jha, 2020). The register of ships are
classified into two categories which are for fishing vessels and the ships other than the small
ships.
The central register of the British ships is divided into four parts which distinguishes
between the categories of the ships. These include, Part I deals with the registration of ship
which are owned by the qualified persons, excluding small ships and the fishing vessels, Part II
deals with fishing vessels, Part III deals with small ships and Part IV deals with bare boat charter
ships. Regulation 5 of the Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships) Regulations of 1993 states
the principle that one ship can be registered in one part of register only (Croatian and Law,
2018).
Regulation 7 and 8 of the Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships) Regulations, 1993
states the requirements for the eligibility of the person to own the ships which are to be
registered under Part I and which ships may be entitled to be registered. The requirements are
analysed from both objective and subjective approach which includes three elements, first is that
only qualified person can own the British ship. It is a subjective approach where the eligibility to
qualify as the owner was amended under Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships)
(Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations of 2019 which states that qualifying owner may be a British
Citizen, British dependent territories citizens, British nationals, British overseas citizens,
Nationals of EU member state who have rights under Article 52 or 48 of EU Treaty, non UK
citizens settled in UK and many other. Second is ships are to be registered into part I of register
where the general rules provides that the ship is entitled to get registered and become the British
ship if the majority interest in ship is owned by the owner of the ship who is qualified pursuant to
Regulation 7. but this may be subject to refusal of Registrar. Third is the British connection