News from the CMI:

– Istanbul Colloquium: President’s Report

– Minutes of the Executive Council meeting held on 7 June 2015 at the SheratonAtakoy Hotel, Istanbul

– Minutes of the Assembly meeting held on 9 June 2015 at the Sheraton Atakoy Hotel,Istanbul

– Minutes of the II Executive Council meeting held on 9 June 2015 at the SheratonAtakoy Hotel, Istanbul

– Minutes of deliberations of the CMI Executive Council held by email conferenceduring the week commencing 23 November 2015, chaired by the President from hisoffice in Sydney

– The 42nd CMI International Conference, New York from 3 to 6 May 2016- Welcome from the President of the CMI

- Conference summary from the Secretary General of the CMI

News from Intergovernmental and International Organizations:

– News from IOPC Funds

– Report of the 19-23 October 2015 Meeting of the IOPC Funds Governing Bodies, byRosalie Balkin

ISSN 0778-9882

CMI NEWS LETTERVigilandum est semper; multae insidiae sunt bonis.

COMITE MARITIME INTERNATIONAL

NO. 1-3 - JANUARY / DECEMBER 2015

NEWS FROM THE CMI

ISTANBUL COLLOQUIUMPRESIDENT’S REPORT

The new management team has settled down andachieved a considerable amount. John Hare, inparticular, has taken on an enormous workload infinalising the conference and seminar in Hamburg(and the add on in Berlin), as well as organising theColloquium which we are attending in Istanbul, andmaking preparations for next year’s conference in

New York. The latter is particularly challenging aswe seek to combine the annual United States MLASpring Meeting with the CMI Conference.

The Management Committee

The CMI is grateful to Benoit Goemans forcontinuing on in the role of Treasurer for the past 12

months. He had wanted to conclude his many yearsof service with the CMI during the course of the last12 months and to have that role taken over by theretiring CEO of the Belgium Shipowners’Association, Peter Verstuyft. Unfortunately Peterwas unable to commence his retirement during thecourse of the last 12 months so we asked Benoit tocontinue in office until the handover could takeplace. I am happy to say that Peter Verstuyft will beable to take over that role (assuming the Assemblyagrees with the Executive Council’srecommendation in that regard), within a few weeksof the meeting in Istanbul when his successorWilfried Lemmens, takes over the role of CEO ofthe Belgium Shipowners’ Association on the 1stSeptember 2015. I reported to the Assembly in Hamburg, that AnneVerlinde had been working as the Head OfficeSecretariat Assistant in Antwerp on a part time basisfor the CMI since 3 March 2014. I am pleased toadvise that at the end of last year we finalised termsof engagement with her to take over the employmentdirectly of Anne as Administrative Assistant in theAntwerp office of the CMI from the agency bywhom she had previously been engaged and hired tothe CMI. Anne has been working assiduously on ourbehalf and is now not only conversant with oursystems and operations but is also proficient inmaking changes to our website. One of the great challenges the CMI faces is keepingthe website up to date and in particular keepingdetails of membership up to date. I am anticipatingthat those Presidents (or their nominees) who attendthe Istanbul Colloquium will receive a writtenrequest from Anne to complete and provide to herthe details not only of the Executives of theirorganisations in the format in which they appear inthe Year Book but also the details of theirmemberships so that that information can beupdated on the CMI website (in respect of thoseMLAs that have previously provided suchinformation in the past) and can be placed on thewebsite by those MLAs who have not provided suchinformation in the past. (Where there are concernsrelating to privacy the arrangement that we havemade with MLAs in that regard is that one person’sname be identified as the recipient of allcommunications from the CMI which are to be sentvia the website and that person will disseminate thatinformation to his or her MLA’s membership.) Annewill therefore be the repository of all informationconcerning membership of MLAs which can then beutilised for the purposes of both the website and theYear Book. A meeting was held by the Management Committeecomprising John Hare, the Secretary-General,Lawrence Teh, the Administrator, Benoit Goemans,

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the Treasurer and Head Office Director, and AnneVerlinde (with Peter Verstuyft in attendance byinvitation) in Antwerp on the 23 and 24 February2015. The meeting took place in the registered officeof the CMI at Ernest Van Dijckkaai on the RiverSheldt, in Antwerp. Many of the matters which were discussed at theManagement Committee Meeting are the subject ofagenda items and will be discussed more fully in thatcontext, as well as at the Executive Council Meetingwhich will take place on Sunday, 11 June 2015 inIstanbul. Before concluding my comments in relation to theManagement Committee Meeting, I should expressour thanks publicly to the Belgium Maritime LawAssociation who entertained us, as they had doneover the last two years, at a most enjoyable eveningfunction. As he is retiring from both his place ofemployment and his role as President of the BelgiumMaritime Law Association I would particularly liketo express my personal thanks to Karel Stes for hissupport and assistance throughout his term of officeand I hope he will continue to be involved with theCMI for many years to come.

Finances

At the last Assembly Meeting the Treasurerforeshadowed a need for subscriptions to be raisedsoon if the CMI was to balance the books, now thatthe funds held in reserve had been depleted to amore appropriate level. As Benoit has pointed out in his Treasurer’s reportthe 2014 income of the CMI was some Euro 83,000less than in 1998, although when adjusted forinflation it is some Euro 193,000 less than it was in1998. The budget set for 2015 in Hamburg envisaged adeficit of about Euro 18,000. The accounts for 2014show a surplus of Euro 10,230 which will beachieved in circumstances in which the CMI’sreserves still stand at Euro 636,626.52. At the time ofwriting this report the Treasurer’s budget for 2016 isawaited. The Executive Council at its meeting on 7June 2015 will be considering whether we need torecommend to the Assembly that the Treasurer’ssuggestion last year for an increase in subscriptionsat this Assembly needs to be given effect to.

Work Projects of the CMI

As usual at the Assembly Meeting you will be givenreports of the activities of the IWGs since Hamburg.There are two particular working groups that Iwould like to comment upon in this Report. The firstis the IWG (on the Review of the Rules of GeneralAverage) chaired by Bent Nielsen with Taco Van derValk and Richard Cornah as his Rapporteurs. Not

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only has a great deal of work gone into this projectsince Hamburg but also a lot will be taking placeover the weekend prior to the Istanbul Colloquiumand delegates will have had an opportunity tocomment and make their views known in the courseof the presentations which will be given at Istanbul.As I have said in letters to the Presidents of MLAs,Istanbul offers the last opportunity before the NewYork Conference for MLAs to have input into thework of this IWG at a CMI Meeting before it ishoped that the work will be finalised in New York. Ihope you will have found it useful. The second topic that I wish to refer to is that ofJudicial Sales of Ships which, as you know,concluded its work in finalising a draft Instrument atthe Hamburg Conference. There was some delayafter the Hamburg Conference while we consideredwhich international body should be approachedwith a view to seeking to have that work become anInternational Convention. We eventually decided toapproach the IMO Legal Committee and we enteredinto correspondence with Fred Kenney, theDirector, Legal Affairs and External RelationsDivision, towards the end of last year. As you will seein the detailed report which Henry Li has providedto you a considerable amount of work went in tomaking a presentation to the IMO Legal Committeeat its meeting in April. Henry Li and Jonathan Luxin particular are to be thanked for all the work theydid and in giving up their time to attend the IMOLegal Committee Meeting. Andrew Robinsonshould also be thanked for all the preparatory workthat he did. It is now incumbent on each of us toseek to persuade our national governments tosupport this work. We need at least two officialsponsors of the project if we are to proceed. Chinahas indicated to the China MLA that it is preparedto be a sponsor provided another country is a co-sponsor. Can your country be persuaded to be asponsor? We also need information from you as toany occasions on which a judicial sale of a ship eitherin your country’s jurisdiction or some othercountry’s jurisdiction has not been recognised inanother jurisdiction. This is in order to satisfy thedelegates at the IMO Legal Committee meetingsthat there is a “compelling need” for aninternational convention in this area. I urge you torespond to my letter of 11 May 2015 seeking thisinformation as soon as you possibly can. We need toplace this information before the IMO LegalCommittee early next year.

New Work Projects

During the course of the last 12 months newInternational Working Groups have been set up tolook at the following topics: (a) The Cape Town Convention

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(b) Practice and Procedures in relation to Arrest ofShips

(c) The Restatement of the General Principles ofthe Lex Maritima.

Two informal groups have also been set up to look attwo distinct topics. Firstly a study to consider theway in which the word “ship” (the vessel, orwatercraft and other relevant terms) are defined indifferent areas of the law in different jurisdictions.(To be known as the “Ship Nomenclature” group). Another study or research project which has been setup is to look at issues that will arise from thethreatened prospect that unmanned ships come tobe a feature of the maritime environment. I am grateful to Ann Fenech (Chair) and DavidOsborne (Rapporteur), Cape Town Convention;Giorgio Berlingieri (Chair) and Aleka Sheppard(Rapporteur), Practice and Procedure in relation toArrest of Ships; Eric Van Hooydonk, (Chair),Restatement of the General Principles of LexMaritima; Frank Nolan (Chair), The “Ship” Definedand, finally, Tom Birch Reynardson and DieterSchwampe “Unmanned Ships” for agreeing to leadthe work on these projects. In addition the Executive Council will beconsidering in Istanbul whether there is scope forwork to be done by the CMI in the following areas:Cyber Crime in Shipping; Maritime Law andRefugee Migration at Sea; and International HealthRegulations and Shipping. If you (or anyone in yourAssociation) have an interest in any of these topicsplease let me know.

Jurisprudence Database

I have in previous reports discussed this project.Unfortunately no sooner do we seem to makeprogress then we run into a roadblock. I hope eachof you will have taken the opportunity to meet whilehe is amongst us in Istanbul, Professor StevenGirvin, who is the Professor of Law, Vice Dean(Research) and Director of the Centre for MaritimeLaw at the National University of Singapore. TheCMI has agreed to contribute the sum of Euro 5,000towards the engagement of a Publication Editor bythe Centre for Maritime Law. Mr Jesse Ji Zhihe ofChina has been appointed a research associate and isexpected to start work at the university on 1 June.He is a graduate of Fudan University (Shanghai),where he was the outstanding graduate in 2004. Hehas been a legal adviser with the China ContinentalProperty & Casualty Insurance Co Ltd from 2005 to2009. He obtained an LLM degree from theScandinavian Institute of Maritime Law in 2012 andsince then has been an Associate with Wang Jing &Co and has worked in that firm’s Guangzhou officeand also its Shanghai office. He is the person whowill be looking to MLAs for their assistance. As a

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result of this development the Executive Council hasrequested Professor Girvin to chair the EditorialBoard which will consist of Giorgio Berlingieri andTaco Van der Valk and be responsible for taking thisproject forward. For ease of convenience I reproduce the list ofConventions that we decided some years ago toconcentrate on and I would ask you to identifysomeone in your Association who can put together alist of all cases and identify where they can belocated on a convenient website, which have dealtwith the provisions of any of these Conventions: 1. The Salvage Convention 1910 2. The Salvage Convention 1989 3. The 1924 Bill of Lading Convention and its

1968 and 1979 Protocols (Hague-Visby Rules)4. The Hamburg Convention 1978 (Hamburg

Rules)5. The 1926 Convention on Maritime Liens and

Mortgages6. The 1952 Arrest Convention7. The CLC 1969-19928. The Fund Convention 1971-19929. The Limitation Convention (LLMC) 197610. The 1976 Athens Convention on the Carriage

of Passengers and their Luggage by Sea11. United Nations Convention on the Law of the

Sea 198212. SUA Convention 1988

IWGs and ISCs

I would like to take this opportunity to thank theChairs and Rapporteurs and members of allInternational Working Groups and InternationalSub-Committees who have done so much work inthe course of the last 12 months, as well as all themembers of the Executive Council who have given

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up their time to carry out the various tasks allotted tothem as members of the Executive Council but alsoto those who have attended meetings and givenpapers around the world and taken the name of theCMI into many different places. Whilst it is invidiousto single out individuals I do, on this occasion,mention John Hare who has not only workedassiduously to prepare this Colloquium and nextyear’s Conference but waved the CMI flag with greatsuccess at the USMLA Spring Meeting a few weeksago. I am very grateful to John Hare for all the workhe has done for the CMI over the last 12 months.

Retirement

As has already been mentioned, Benoit Goemansgraciously agreed to continue in office as Treasurer forthe last 12 months and I am extremely grateful to himfor doing so. As I said in my report last year “there arenot many lawyers who are sufficiently numerate totake on the role as Treasurer of such a significantorganisation”. Benoit, with his pie charts and otheraids to understanding the status of our accounts, hasentertained us and informed us annually at AssemblyMeetings and has served on the Executive Councilwhere the same degree of good sense has informedand benefited that body also. We owe him a huge debtof gratitude. I will of course be saying more at theAssembly Meeting along those lines. We say farewell this year to two members of theExecutive Council whose terms have expired,Andrew Taylor and Louis Mbanefo. I would like totake this opportunity of thanking them both for theirsignificant contributions over the last six years andtrust that they will continue to be involved with theCMI for many years to come.

STUART HETHERINGTON

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1. Apologies

No apologies were recorded.

2. Welcome

The President welcomed Councillors to the meeting,and extended a particular welcome to PeterVerstuyft, who had been invited to attend in order tomeet Executive Councillors and other delegates inanticipation of his election at the Assembly meetingto take over the Treasurer’s role from BenoitGoemans. The Secretary-General presented Dr Bulent Sozer,Chair of the TMLA Organising Committee, to theCouncil which expressed thanks to Dr Sozer for theefforts of the TMLA and his committee thus far. DrSozer welcomed the CMI and the Council toIstanbul and then left the meeting.

3. Approval of the Minutes of Virtual MeetingNovember 2014

The minutes of the November 2014 virtual meetingof EXCO were tabled, approved and signed.

4. Matters arising from the Minutes of the VirtualMeeting

None, not covered in the agenda.

5. Minutes of the meetings of the ManagementCommittee (22-24 February 2015, at Antwerp)

Tabled and noted.

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The President invited Anne Verlinde to give a shortdescription of her role and how it was working out.She confirmed that she works 13-hour week inaggregate, and is finding that in addition to theadministrative tasks her time is well filled in relationto the website which she has been trained by VanillaBrief to make alterations to. The President asked about the extent to which AnneVerlinde is able to take over the management of theCMI website. Anne Verlinde confirmed that she canupload information on the website and that shewould like to learn to create new pages properly. TheSecretary-General attested to Anne’s work on thewebsite, also for her work in helping him to create adatabase for conference attendees, and for herprocessing of reimbursements for EXCO. The President asked about the CMI archive andAnne Verlinde explained that it was in four differentlocations – Benoit Goemans’ office, official archive,storage location and library in Belgian Shipowners’Association. Andrew Taylor asked whether the CMIarchives are catalogued and Anne Verlinde said thatthey appeared not to be. The Secretary-Generalhighlighted that it was a large exercise to do so andagreed with Andrew Taylor that it was important toput as much information as possible on the website.The archives are an ongoing item of the ManagementCommittee. Yearbooks – The President suggested that a templatebe created for more efficiency in NMLAs updatinginformation and that the secretariat send out thetemplate as a form for NMLAs to confirm the

MINUTES OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON 7 JUNE 2015 AT THE SHERATON ATAKOY HOTEL, ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Participating:

President: STUART HETHERINGTON

Past President: KARL-JOHAN GOMBRII

Vice-Presidents: GIORGIO BERLINGIERICHRISTOPHER DAVIS

Secretary-General: JOHN HARE

Administrator: LAWRENCE TEHTreasurer/Head Office Director: BENOIT GOEMANS

Councillors: ANDREW TAYLORLOUIS MBANEFO

DIHUANG SONGJORGE RADOVICHTOMOTAKA FUJITAALEXANDER VON ZIEGLERDIETER SCHWAMPE

ANN FENECHBy invitation: ANNE VERLINDE and PETER VERSTUYFT

Item numbers correspond to those on the agenda duly circulated to exco members by the president on 26 may 2015.

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accuracy of their information in the Yearbook, andto facilitate changes to the information on the website. Vice-President Berlingieri confirmed he would be intouch with Ms Verlinde to continue work regardingYearbook updates. Dihuang Song mentioned that China MLA is to havean international conference and wondered if theevent could be placed on the website. It was pointedout that there is a location on the website’s openingpage for NMLA events and others to be publicizedand contributions of such information are welcomed.The suggestion was approved, the general principlebeing that the CMI is willing to assist NMLAs indisseminating information about upcoming maritimelaw related events in their jurisdictions. This isperhaps something that can be followed up throughcontact between EXCO members and the NMLAs intheir charge. All such notifications should beprocessed through the secretariat. The President asked if insurance had yet been put inplace to cover Anne Verlinde’s driving for workpurposes. It had not, and the Secretary-Generalsuggested that until it is in place, Anne should use ataxi. It was suggested that Anne Verlinde’s email addressbe listed on the website. Vice-President Davisenquired about the old email for Pascale Sterckxand was told that the admini email had beendiscontinued. The President invited Peter Verstuyft to informEXCO what the timing is for his assumption of therole as Treasurer, assuming the Assembly approveshis nomination. Mr Verstuyft said that his successorhad been appointed and the changeover would be inSeptember 2015. The CMI Assembly would thus beasked to appoint Peter Verstuyft with effect from 1September, though The Treasurer undertook toensure a good overlap, for which EXCO’sappreciation was expressed.

6. Finance and Administration:

(a) Treasurer’s ReportBenoit Goemans as Treasurer tabled his report anddrew the meeting’s attention to the reserves of€630626 and the small annual surplus for 2014 of€10230. The Treasurer reported that the CMI is backto break-even and has not been required to dip intoits reserve. The President considered that about€500000 was sufficient reserve. Dieter Schwampeasked if there was a tax problem in holding too muchreserve. The Treasurer did not think so and said thatas long as the CMI funds stayed in the organisation,there should be no tax implications. He wasgenerally in favour of maintaining a reasonablereserve.

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(b) Accounts Accounts were tabled and approved for submissionto the Assembly.

(c) Audit Committee Report The report of the Audit Committee was tabledwithout qualifications of the year’s accounts, and wasduly noted for submission to the Assembly.

(d) Budgets for 2015 and 2016 These budgets (duly amended and tabled) wereapproved, and in respect of the 2016 budget forsubmission to the Assembly upon the basis that ithad been decided that it would not be necessary toincrease NMLA subscriptions as had beencontemplated last year. See further comments onadjustment of the 2016 budget figures in the light ofa change in the policy relating to the reimbursementof EXCO registration fees in para (h) below.

(e) Report of collection of outstanding subscriptions Vice-President Davis’s report was tabled and noted. The President reported that there had been noresponse to the final demand for subscriptions fromBulgaria and Pakistan, and accordingly EXCOagreed to recommend to the Assembly that Bulgariaand Pakistan be expelled. Vice-President Davis reported that owing tosanctions, Russia was experiencing difficulty insettling outstanding subscriptions, though AnneVerlinde confirmed that some payments in smallamounts had been received. The President had beenin correspondence with the Russian MLA, mostrecently by way of email dated May 2 2015 when itwas explained that the main source of revenue ismembership fees, sponsors and small privatedonations. Membership fees had been doubled in thepast year but unfortunately the devaluation of theRussian currency has made such payments lessvaluable. There is to be a seminar later this year in theautumn and the President had offered to seek toarrange for the attendance of an EXCO member ifdesired by the Russian MLA. It was resolved not tocommence expulsion measures against Russia at thisstage, but for Chris Davis to follow up recentcorrespondence and seek further payments to reducethe indebtedness. The Treasurer mentioned Article 21 of theConstitution which empowers the Assembly toauthorise the President to negotiate the amount andpayment of arrears with Members in default, subjectto approval of any such agreement by EXCO. Heproposed that this should be a yearly blanketmandate sought given to the President by theAssembly. EXCO will put this to the Assembly forapproval on an on-going basis. Jorge Radovich provided an update on his efforts inrelation to collections of NMLAs principally fromSouth America, under his charge. Venezuela, as is

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well known, is suffering economically and hasdifficulty remitting funds outside the country, but itsMLA remains committed to the CMI and will makewhatever payments it can as soon as possible.Colombia and Uruguay had also been contacted andthere is an expectation that they will pay theirarrears soon. Jorge Radovich will contact thoseMLAs that he was responsible for with a view toensuring timely payments are made. Two MLAs had enquired as to the possibility ofhaving a unilateral reduction to their subscriptions,without the CMI conducting a complete review ofsubscriptions. After wide ranging discussion it wasdecided that it would not be appropriate to makeindividual reductions in subscriptions, which in anyevent can only be made by the Assembly. Followingon from the earlier discussion concerning themandate to be sought from the Assembly for thePresident to be empowered to negotiate with MLAsunder Article 21 it was considered that this was amore appropriate course to take where MLAsencountered financial difficulties. It was alsodecided that if in the next couple of years there areto be increases in subscriptions proposed to theAssembly it may be considered appropriate at thattime to conduct a more general review of thecategories and the amounts that each category pays. Dieter Schwampe enquired about the history behindthe assessment of subscription fees. The Presidentexplained that historically subscriptions had beenset having regard to the size of maritime and tradeactivity in the jurisdiction, taking into account fleetsize, strength of maritime bar and other factorsindicating the strength of the shipping sector. Therehad been a general review of subscriptions acrossthe board for all MLAs when the SteeringCommittee reported in 2009. That had resulted insignificant reductions for most MLAs, including therevocation of fees for Titulary members. Portugal has not paid anything since the formation ofa new NMLA (with 15 members), but has offered tomake a 50% payment of all its arrears and fullpayment for the current year’s subscription. ThePresident was authorised to approve such a deal andVice-President Berlingieri undertook to make contactwith Portugal’s MLA President with whom he hadrecently spoken. It was pointed out that whilstPortugal is said to have only a limited membershipthe recent IIDM meeting in Lisbon attracted a verymuch larger group of local maritime lawyers. The Dominican Republic had also been in contactconcerning its arrears and made an offer to pay 50%of its arrears by way of instalments and pay this yearsand future subscriptions in full. The President wasauthorised to approve such a deal and Vice-President Davis undertook to notify the President ofthe Dominican Republic’s MLA President.

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Vice President Berlingieri proposed that aquestionnaire be circulated to the NMLAs to learnmore about how they are organised and theirleadership is renewed. This was noted withoutdecision, it being something that may be consideredin the future, especially if increases and/or a reviewof subscriptions is to be considered. It was pointedout that such a questionnaire was previously sent outto members by the Steering Committee and thePresident undertook to forward a copy of thesynopsis of the responses to Giorgio Berlingieri. TheSecretary-General pointed out that we need alwaysto be aware that NMLAs query what value they getfrom paying subscriptions. The more exposure wecan generate about the extensive and often behindthe scenes work being done by the CMI to producea better maritime law regime internationally, thebetter the perception of that value will be toNMLAs. But this message needs to get down the lineto individual members of the NMLAs and thusfrequent contact with NMLAs is most desirable.This is being achieved through our website, and ourevents. Dihaung Song stressed the importance of theparticipation of the CMI and EXCO in locallyorganised events. The Secretary-General suggested that ConsultativeMembers could be encouraged to pay somemembership fee. Andrew Taylor cautioned that someof those international organisations supporting theGA sessions pay fees to BMLA so we need to bearthat overlap in mind. The Administrator was taskedwith looking into the possibility. There was no support for the suggestion made thatTitulary Membership fees be reintroduced.

(f) Approval of nomination of De Mol, Meuldermansand Partners BVBA as auditor of 2016 accounts

Resolution: Approved the appointment of De MolMeuldermans & Partners BUBA as auditor.

(g) Appointment of Peter Verstuyft

Resolution: Approved, to ask the Assembly toconfirm Peter Verstuyft’s nomination forappointment as Treasurer with effect from 1September 2015.

(h) Reimbursement of ExCo expenses andReimbursement of Chairs/Rapporteurs expenses.

The Secretary-General explained his memorandum,which was tabled. He reported the successfulintroduction for the Istanbul Colloquium of a socialregistration fee of €250 (broadly corresponding tothe social costs of an event) which was paid by all thespeakers who had their remaining 50% registrationfee underwritten by the CMI – without any demur.This in the context that it is CMI policy that speakerswhere possible should not have to pay a registrationfee. This policy was endorsed by EXCO. The first

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50% of speakers’ registration fees was absorbed intothe Hamburg and Istanbul Colloquium budgets. The Secretary-General asked if there is generalsupport for social registration fee being paid notonly by speakers but by EXCO as well. Heexpressed the view that while on CMI business,including attending CMI events, EXCO membersshould have all their expenses paid not least becausethe cost would be beyond the means of those fromweaker currencies. He expressed his oft-repeatedview that the CMI should not be a “rich mans’ club”– gender and means issues need to be considered.Accommodation costs should also be considered, itbeing the present practice that EXCO membershave their necessary accommodation for eventsreimbursed by CMI. The President recalled a paper of the then Presidentof CMI, Patrick Griggs, dealing with this topic in2001 and the Resolution at that time by EXCOwhere it was agreed that EXCO members shouldpay their own conference fees (except the Presidentand Secretary-General) unless they performed aspecific function during the event (such as speakeror perhaps chair of a session).There was much debate, with views initiallysupporting EXCO not paying any registration fees,but paying a social registration fee. Ann Fenechsuggested that having their registration fees paid isin a small way compensating EXCO members fortheir work. Karl-Johan Gombrii agreed, and saidthat it is expected of EXCO members that theyattend CMI events. Jorge Radovich agreed withthese views and said that this would enable lawyersfrom smaller firms to accept appointments to serveon EXCO. Vice-President Davis then suggested thatit may be tidier, and have much the same outcome,if the CMI were to meet 50% of EXCO’sregistration fees, with no social registration fee. TheSecretary-General was not sure that the outcomewould be the same, especially where there is a highregistration fee (such as will be likely in the USA for2016). He pointed out that the decision did notaffect him because as Secretary-General, he does notpay registration fees anyway. The Treasurer wondered whether it could be agreedwith NMLAs for future conferences that EXCO andall speaker expenses could be accounted as part ofoverheads, i.e. before profit is reckoned. TheSecretary-General replied that while he would belooking to the Conference budget in New York tomeet the full 100% of speakers’ registration fee(rather than only 50% as has been done forHamburg and Istanbul) he thought that the CMIhad its own business to do around Conferences, andthat part of that business was for EXCO to attend itsown meetings and the Conference. He did not thinkhe would be able to load event budgets with EXCO

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registration fees. Andrew Taylor thought that weshould keep in mind EXCO business on the onehand and Conference business on the other and finda mechanism for reimbursing for EXCO business.The Secretary-General agreed that this is how eventsare now structured: with separate budgets for CMIown expenses, conference expenses and host MLAexpenses. The majority of EXCO favoured the “EXCOobligation to attend CMI events” approach, butsupported the notion of a part refund of registrationfees instead of a social registration fee with a fullrefund.

Resolution: By unanimous vote that EXCO membersattending CMI events would receive 50%reimbursement of their registration fees, and fullhotel accommodation costs necessitated by theirattendance at such events. Travel costs are alsocovered, as determined by the guidelines approvedby EXCO in 2014. The Secretary-General confirmed that it would bewithin the President’s powers to look at anydeserving case where a departure from this decisionis warranted. Reference was then made to the Treasurer’s budgetsup to 2016 which could be adjusted in the light ofthe above resolution. The Secretary-Generalproposed that for 2016 line 61 be €15,000, then line71 be nil, then line 72 be €4,000 (the provision forspeakers’ travel costs being too high). The 2016budget was adjusted accordingly.

7. Members and appointments

(a) Expulsion: Pakistan and Bulgaria

Resolution: To recommend to the Assembly thatboth MLAs be expelled.

(b) Provisional membership: Captain AhmedRuhullah, Bangladesh Resolution: To recommendto the Assembly that he be appointed a Provisionalmember.

(c) Possible future membership applications: (i) Lebanon (Hussein Abou Zeid of Kouatly &

Associates) Correspondence between thisapplicant who was in the process offounding a Lebanese MLA and thePresident was tabled and noted. Inparticular it was noted that there had beenno response to the President’scommunication of 13 February 2015inviting him and his colleagues to attendthe Istanbul meeting .

(ii) Iran (Amirhossein Haghighi). Correspondencebetween this applicant who was a memberthe Iranian MLA for Provisional member-ship and the President, (the President’s let-

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ter explaining that provisional membershipwas intended for persons who are endeav-ouring to set up an MLA and not for MLAswho are already in existence), was tabledand noted.

(iii) Chris Davis queried whether Cuba mightbe a potential member and DieterSchwampe referred to correspondencefrom a resident of the UAE, which will befollowed up.

(d) Titulary membership: Jonathan Lux EXCO nomination to Titularymembership, introduced by Andrew Taylor. Karel Stes. Nomination by the incoming Presidentof the Belgian MLA, introduced by BenoitGoemans.

Resolution: Both approved unanimously forapproval of the Assembly.

8. Meetings

(a) Istanbul 2015 The Secretary-General reported briefly on the finalarrangements for the Istanbul Colloquium for whichthere were over 230 registrants (final figure, 241 plus41 Accompanying Persons). He recorded thanksand praise for the efforts of both the PCO, Etix andthe Turkish MLA Organising Committee.

(b) New York 2016 The Secretary-General’s report was tabled andnoted. A CMI 2016 New York Planning Committeemeeting is to be held on Monday with those of theUS MLA organising Committee including itsPresident and Vice Presidents who are present inIstanbul.The President reported on an approach made to theCMI through Ricardo Rozas that the IBA TransportCommittee join the Conference as co-host. ThePresident reported that from views sought, it wasnot considered a good idea to co-brand the IBA butthat there were advantages to be gained from somelimited form of collaboration. The Secretary-General expressed concerns at possible difficultiesin organising an even larger event than alreadyplanned, especially given how far advanced wealready are. It was suggested that in future yearswhen CMI decides on a more limited event, then wecan let IBA know and they can have bigger eventsand we can cross-publicise. Opinions were given byAnn Fenech, Dieter Schwampe and Dihuang Songon possibility of collaboration with IBA. TheSecretary-General said that Ricardo Rozas was keento promote IBA attendance and publicise CMI NewYork to IBA. The President stressed that the successof New York depends on programme planning andgetting up a level of interest that will attract

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delegates to attend the CMI conference. ThePresident thought that carriage/Rotterdam Rules tobe one of those topics. The Secretary-General mentioned the open doorpolicy of the US MLA Spring Meetings andexpressed pleasure that all members of EXCO hadapproved this as an aim for the CMI and MLAUS in2016 – subject to the caveat that there are events forwhich registration and payment of a fee will berequired. The Secretary-General explained that itwill be crucial for the joint working sessions be opento all, primarily because the MLAUS members areused to attending all Spring Meetings for free. Whatwill help is for as many as possible of the meetings tobe held at the Hilton where there is ample space atno extra charge. A very competitive room rate hasbeen negotiated with the Midtown Hilton. The President suggested that we look at IWG topicsthat could be relevant to US MLA Committees, e.g.arbitration, cross-border insolvency, classificationsocieties, fair treatment, acts of piracy, marineinsurance, etc. To this end, he and Bob Clyne, thecurrent MLAUS President, have already sent a letterto the chairs of all CMI IWGs and all MLAUSCommittees inviting suggestions for collaboration. [13h15 break for lunch. Meeting resumed 14:10]

(c) Assembly 2017 EXCO was unanimous in the view, at this stage, thatthere should be a small event around an Assemblyfor 2017. The Secretary-General suggested thepossibility of Genoa so that Prof FrancescoBerlingieri might attend, and be honoured by themeeting. A final decision was deferred to New York, becauseit will depend also on progress made with GeneralAverage amendments.

(d) Colloquium and Assembly 2018

(e) Assembly 2019

(f) Conference 2020 No decision was needed for events beyond 2016 atthis stage, though the principle was accepted that theCMI return to the format of a main event every 4years, an intermediate symposium or colloquiumevery two years, and in the in-between years, a simpleAssembly at a venue reasonably accessible. This wasso that we do not devalue the CMI events byscheduling them too often, especially in the light ofdifficult economic circumstances.

9. International Working Groups

(a) Recognition of Foreign Judicial Sale of Ships The President commended the work done by HenryLi and Jonathan Lux at the IMO Legal Committeemeeting in April but emphasised the matters referredto in his letter reporting to MLAs dated 11 May 2015

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to the effect that two sponsors are needed (i.e. onecountry to support China) and the provision ofexamples where Judicial Sales had not gonesmoothly, in the sense that they had not beenrecognised in another jurisdiction. These are neededin order to reach the threshold test of the IMO’s“compelling need”. Follow up will be crucial to theeventual success of the instrument. The Presidentalso referred to the fact that there are to bediscussions between UNCTAD and IMO as to howthey can best co-operate in relation to this projectand he will be meeting with Dorota Lost-Sieminskaat the IMO immediately after the Istanbul meeting.

(b) Review of the Rules on General Average EXCO noted that the ISC the day before hadproduced indications, of progress and optimism thatagreement can be reached on the two major issues ofsalvage and port of refuge expenses. If thisagreement can be reached, amendments in NewYork would be attainable. The IWG is suggestingalso that there be guidelines produced which can beupdated more easily, and which can provideillustrative examples of GA adjustments incontentious matters.

(c) Cross-border Insolvency Vice-President Chris Davis reported that the subjectremains relevant. He referred to his report whichwas tabled and noted which outlines possible waysforward. The President suggested that there seemedto be a variety of approaches which could be takenand something should be prepared for discussionand possible resolution in New York such as thedrafting of a proposed legislative amendment alongthe lines of EU Regulation 5.1, a carve out as perSouth Africa’s s.10, or a limit to Article 21 relief. Thefinal alternative seemed to be to allow the Courts tosort out the mess.

(d) Polar Shipping The Report of Aldo Chircop was tabled and noted.He is unable to be in Istanbul as his wife isundergoing medical treatment. We wish him welland congratulate him and the IWG on the excellentwork that has been done to date, especially inrelation to the Polar Code. The IWG has conductedits work via emails, telephone conferences andoccasional meetings. It has devolved into thefollowing sub groups: Conventions; Load Lines;Civil liability, Polarworthiness; and Collisionavoidance regulations. The Secretary-Generalreported that under the temporary leadership ofNigel Frawley, the IWG was to devote two full daysto meetings in Istanbul. The IWG is in contact withits counterparts at the US MLA and it is anticipatedthat a valuable working session can be developed forthe New York Conference.

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(e) Marine Insurance Dieter Schwampe tabled the IWG report which wasnoted. It referred to discussions that had taken placebetween Fred Kenney at the IMO and chair JoGrasso as a result of which the IWG had determinedto proceed with preparing draft Guidelines to assistGovernments in satisfying themselves that anystatutory insurance cover provided is in line withminimum requirements under the relevantconventions and in relation to time limits for directaction claims against insurers. The IWG will also beconsidering the recent EU Directive on MutualRecognition (relating to Classification Societies) witha view to analysing the effects of the Directive on themarine insurance industry and whether there was anywork product which the IWG could produce to assistindustry. EXCO commented that marine Insurancewas a good topic for the New York Conference.

(f) Offshore Activities The report of Patrick Griggs was tabled and noted.Jorge Radovich spoke to the report, and confirmedthat the IWG would be meeting later in the day toprepare for tomorrow’s seminar. He suggested that aconvention on liabilities is under consideration as apossible way forward.

(g) Rotterdam Rules Tomotaka Fujita tabled the IWG report. He reportedthat he and Alex von Ziegler had taken part in anUNCITRAL workshop in December to prepare aratification kit for countries contemplating ratification.The President reported on correspondence he had hadwith the Polish MLA who had suggested that a topicfor consideration by the CMI should be jurisdictionclauses in carriage documents and their differentinterpretations in various jurisdictions. The Presidentqueried whether this might be an informative topic forconsideration in New York by way of panelpresentations, perhaps chaired by Michael Sturley. Itwas noted that Michael Sturley was attending Istanbuland would be presenting an update on the progress ofthe Rotterdam Rules through the USA system.

Resolution: It was agreed that Miriam Goldby beinvited to join the IWG and approval given toTomotaka Fujita to provide the IWG ratification kitto UNCITRAL.

(h) Fair Treatment of Seafarers The report of Olivia Murray was tabled and notedthat a CMI co-sponsored paper had been submittedto LEG 102 in April 2015, which reported on thesurvey that had been conducted into the FairTreatment Guidelines. The Committee determinedto keep this subject on the work programme.

(i) Acts of Piracy - Maritime Violence: Andrew Taylor tabled his report which was notedand spoke to it- confirming that while pirate activity

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around the coast of Somalia was lessening bothNigeria and South East Asia had seen increases insuch activity. The Secretary-General reported thatFrank Wiswall had resigned from the IWG.

(j) Cape Town Convention (Since renamed ShipFinance Security Practices)

Ann Fenech tabled her report, and spoke to it-identifying how she has gone about the task ofinterviewing the proposed members of the IWG andwhat they brought to the study of this topic. Annalso informed the meeting that work had alreadystarted on the formulation of a questionnaire to sendto MLAs and those members of the group who werein Istanbul would be meeting over the next coupleof days.The Secretary-General remarked that theformation of the IWG was a textbook example ofhow this should be done. The Secretary-General willwrite to Sir Roy Goode to inform him of theestablishment of this IWG.

Resolution: Approval was unanimous for theformalisation of the IWG and of the membership asproposed: Ann Fenech (Chair); David Osborne(Rapporteur); Andrew Tetley; Sheng Chen;Professor Souichirou Kozuka; Camilla MendesVianna Cardoso; Allen Black; Stefan Rindfleisch.

(k) Practice and Procedure in relation to Arrest of Ships Vice-President Berlingieri tabled his report, and thequestionnaire that has been sent out to NMLAs. Itwas decided that the group remain small at thisstage, pending the replies to the questionnaire.

Resolution: The IWG was agreed in November, butthe composition was discussed further, and SirBernard Eder was proposed as an additionalmember which was accepted. The Secretary-General is to write to him to invite him to join, copyto Giorgio Berlingieri.

(l) Restatement of General Principles of LexMaritima.

The Secretary-General tabled the report of Eric vanHooydonk, which identified the task of the IWG todevelop “an elementary – that is concise andflexible – description of the typical concepts of therules of maritime law that may be regarded asinternationally accepted and common to most if notall legal systems and traditions”. His report alsoidentified the proposed members of the IWG. As noCVs of those proposed were available, it was agreedto hold over approval of the new members until thesecond EXCO meeting, once Prof van Hooydonkhad submitted CVs.

10. New IWG: Unmanned Ships

The President noted that this topic is gatheringconsiderable interest. A typically erudite paper

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(“The law of unmanned merchant shipping-anexploration”) had been written on the topic by Ericvan Hooydonk which had been published in theJournal of International Maritime Law ((2014) 20JIML) and correspondence had been received fromRobert Veal, a Senior Research Fellow at theInstitute of Maritime Law at SouthamptonUniversity wishing to utilise the CMI for thepurposes of sending a Questionnaire to MLAs. TheSecretary-General undertook to liaise with ProfSchwampe to identify possible US members so thatthe topic can be covered in New York in 2016. ProfSchwampe undertook to draft a letter to send toRobert Veal in relation to an upcoming event dealingwith unmanned ships at Southampton University inOctober, and Mr Birch Reynardson was to be askedto suggest someone from London to attend theSouthampton event. The Secretary-Generalmentioned that this is another ideal topic in which toinvolve younger members, and suggested heapproach Steven Gosling to ascertain if he isinterested in joining the group. He was driving theyoung projects at the Nautical Institute though hehas now moved on. (Subsequent to both EXCOmeetings in Istanbul the President ascertained thatHenrik Ringbom is very involved in work related tothis topic and would be delighted to join the IWG).

Resolution: The establishment of a new IWG wasapproved, with Tom Birch Reynardson as Chair.Dieter Schwampe volunteered to join, and Eric vanHooydonk was proposed as a further member andapproved. The new IWG should liaise with RobertVeal in relation to the Questionnaire which can beforwarded to MLAs provided a suitably wordedletter accompanies it making clear that it is not aCMI Questionnaire and it is a matter for each MLAas to whether it wishes to participate by respondingto it. Dieter Schwampe is to prepare a suitable letterfor the Chair of the IWG or the President to send.

11. Standing Committees:

(a) CMI Charitable Trust The President reported that the Trust is to meet inIstanbul and Patrick Griggs would present a reportfor the Assembly. The Secretary-General expressedhis wish to revive the Essay Prize which hadfoundered many years ago and the Charitable Trustwill be asked to fund it. Further discussion to bedeferred until Taco van Der Valk is elected toEXCO.

(b) CMI Archives This topic was dealt with under item 5 above

(c) CMI Young Members Sebastian Lootgeiter’s request for funding (for theevent of Young Lawyers in Northern Europe) was

discussed but it was considered more appropriatethat it be redirected to NMLAs The Presidentreiterated that consideration be given to appointingyoung lawyers as rapporteurs of IWGs whereappropriate. The topic of Unmanned Ships beingone for consideration in that regard.

(d) Constitution Committee The Secretary-General tabled a short reportcovering meetings in Antwerp in February, andundertook to carry on the review of the constitutionin good time to recommend amendments for NewYork. The President had identified to theCommittee three Articles (12, 15 and 18) that hethought worthy for reform consideration-Article 15in order to give greater express authority to theTreasurer to perform administrative tasks; Article 18to consider the manner of appointments to theNominating Committee; and Article 18 to empowerEXCO to pay Honorariums to the Treasurer,Administrator and Secretary-General. PatriceRembauville has confirmed he would like to stay onthe committee and Frank Wiswall has steppeddown. His resignation was noted, with thanks for hisenormous contributions to the constitution of theCMI over many decades.

(e) General Average interest rates The committee’s proposal for a rate of 2.5% wastabled for submission to the Assembly, with a viewto EXCO also being empowered to vary that rate ifso recommended by the Committee towards the endof the year if there is a change in circumstances.

(f) Nominating Committee The committee’s report was tabled and noted. TheAdministrator confirmed that there had been noadditional nominations, beyond those referred to inthe report.

(g) Planning Committee The Secretary-General tabled a short report,indicating that it was unlikely that a meeting of thecommittee would be convened in Istanbul. He askedthat the planning reports of New York and Istanbul,and the proposed new IWGs be read as evidence ofthe considerable planning that had been doneduring the past year, though regrettably mostlyoutside the committee. Clearly the planning andpreparation for the New York Conference and themerger of US MLA Committees and IWGs willthrow up new challenges which can be consideredand debated after that Conference.

(h) Jurisprudence database on Maritime Conventions The President suggested that the CMI shouldencourage NMLAs to supply jurisprudence toStephen Girvin and his newly appointed researcherfor the project, Jesse Zhihe. All those who read theseminutes are asked please to submit any appropriate

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court decision dealing with the interpretation orapplication of the selected Maritime Conventions (seethe President’s Annual Report to the Assembly for thelist) to Prof Stephen Girvin (sdgirvin@nus.edu.sg.)

(i) Implementing and Promoting Ratification ofMaritime Conventions

The emailed report from Deucalion Rediadis tabledand noted. In particular it identified that the 15replies to the Questionnaire showed that thoseConventions with wide acceptances are those whereICS/CMI have members. (These include Marpol,FAL, PAL 2002, and LLMC 1996). Others (such asRR, HNS, WRC, Recycling, SID and Arrest 1999)are in jurisdictions where both CMI/ICS havemembers and those where they do not. Some of thereasons identified for non-ratification for particularconventions are: RR – dependent on tradingpartners; HNS – burdensome procedures anddependent on neighbouring States; WRC – nocommon reasons apparent; Recycling – ratificationby States with recycling capacity is relevant, hence nourgency for other States; SID – burdensomeprocedures, data protection issues, no added value;Arrest 1999 – preference for 1952 Convention; EUStates defer to EU Regulations on Jurisdiction in civiland commercial matters. Louis Mbanefo said that on the one hand there wasno point in making conventions if no one ratifies, onthe other hand the act of promoting ratification issensitive because it is a sovereign matter. Response tothe questionnaire was poor. The President suggestedthat CMI should be more pro-active in promotingratification. It was suggested that perhaps CMI couldoffer to participate in events in countries to raiseawareness and interest in ratification. Dihuang Songsuggested that a precipitating event might be used asthe occasion to ask the government to considerratification, citing as an example the Yangtze ferrydisaster and the ratification of the Athens conventionand protocols. Deucalion Rediadis’s report also suggested that thework of the committee be split into two streams:ratification and monitoring implementation. Thiswould be discussed further at later meetings ofEXCO. Peter Laurijssen of the Belgium MLA hadvolunteered to assist and Deucalion has indicated aneed to have someone from a common lawjurisdiction to assist.

(j) Publications and websiteThe need for a template for NMLA Executiveinformation was again referred to as necessary tomaintain the accuracy of information on the database and in the Yearbook. Vice-President Berlingieri and Anne Verlindereported on the finalisation and transmission of theYearbook, as well as plans for the next issues. The

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Vice President was congratulated on a fine effort inproducing the Yearbook. The President reported that work on the publicationof the Conventions Handbook still proceeds.Patrick Griggs has recently enquired of FrankWiswall whether it was still feasible to beconsidering a printed version or whether a disc ormemory stick may be more useful. Resolution: A quotation from Vanilla Brief toupgrade the website was considered. It was decidedthat there were insufficient funds budgeted toauthorise this work at this stage and Anne and Peterwill investigate returning the management of theweb site to Belgium if an appropriate person ororganisation can be identified.

12. Ad hoc Committees:

(a) Arbitration This topic was deferred until Luc Grellet joinedEXCO.

(b) Ship Nomenclature Frank Nolan’s report was tabled and noted. Theproject was identified as studying “the meaning anduses of the terms “ship”, “vessel”, “watercraft”, orother relevant terms for marine property subject tointernational agreement and national laws”.The Secretary-General reported on the work to dateof Frank Nolan in constituting the IWG This IWGwill be producing a Questionnaire and will beencouraged to set up this topic for the New YorkConference.

Resolution: The composition of the IWG proposedby Frank Nolan of Edmund Sweetman,(Rapporteur), Jens Mathiasen, Lawrence Teh; andRicardo Rozas was approved, with the addition ofDr Bulent Sozer who had indicated a willingness toserve, this being a topic on which he has written.

(c) Future of CMI The Secretary-General reported on discussions heldwith Liz Burrell in New York and confirmed thatshe was attending Istanbul, and was serving on theorganising committee of CMI 2016 New York. LizBurrell has indicated that she will have a reportready for New York.

(d) Classification Societies The Secretary-General proposed that the IWG bereconstituted, and this was agreed. Karl-JohanGombrii confirmed he is happy to chair, with Alexvon Ziegler, the Secretary-General and TomotakaFujita. Consideration was given to enlarging thegroup to include representatives from industry.After debate, it was decided that the way forwardshould be cautious, and that industry should first beconsulted as to whether or not they would support arenewed CMI initiative. Once that has been

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ascertained the IWG may recommend additionalmembers. It was noted that this is a topic whichwould be suited to the New York Conference.

Resolution: This Committee will comprise KarlGombrii (chair), John Hare, Tomotaka Fujita andAlexander von Ziegler.

(e) Potential new studies: (i) Cybercrime in Shipping The Secretary-General tabled his report, but a

final decision was held over to EXCO #2 to see ifTaco van der Valk would be interested in chairing.

(ii) Maritime Law and Refugee Migration at SeaThe Secretary-General tabled his report and

sought authority to establish an ad hoc committee tolook into the maritime law ramifications of the issue,and whether or not the CMI could become usefullyinvolved. He stressed that this was a tragedyunfolding daily on the seas in ships, and thatinternational maritime regulation and law was simplyignored. He reported that Fred Kenney of the IMOhad expressed interest in the CMI becominginvolved. The President referred to the history ofdealing with a similar problem in Australia and inparticular the legal issues that came to the forefrontin relation to the “Tampa” incident where “refugees”were taken on board the cargo ship off the coast ofIndonesia and sought to discharge them in Australia.The Secretary-General asked if there were yet anystandard BIMCO clauses, to which Andrew Taylorreplied that there were none yet. Ann Fenechsuggested all EXCO members feed information orcomments to the Secretary-General so that theinitiative may be further evaluated. Resolution: an initial “Committee”, comprising theSecretary-General, with a mandate to report onfurther steps that may be appropriate wasestablished.

(iii) International Health Regulations and Shipping: The President’s Memorandum recounting the

request he had received from Fred Kenney to liaisewith interested parties the resultant telephonemeeting with representatives of the InternationalCruise Industry and the ICS concerning theproblems faced by the industry and the recent Ebolacrisis was noted. The President undertook to reportfurther developments once the paper prepared bythe ICS had been received.

13. EU Rapporteur

Vincent Power had provided a full report for EXCO, asummary of which he is to present to the Assembly. Inhis report he discusses inter alia the “MSC Orchestra”case and the conflict between IMO (Marpol) and EUlaw on sulphur content, as well as competition law asapplied in the EU to liner conference arrangements andmigration law issues. Dr Power has confirmed that the

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CMI may post this report on its website. Anne Verlindeis to attend to the posting.

14. Singapore regional office.

Held over to EXCO #2.

15. IOPC Funds: April 2015 meeting.

The report of Rosalie Balkin was noted, with thanks.

16. Correspondence The following correspondencewas tabled and noted:

(a) International Anti-Corruption Court (Ukraine) (b) Email Taco Van der Valk: reporting on

developments in the Netherlands Antilles (c) Email from Dan Gunasekera (Sri Lanka)

(reporting that he was making progress towardsthe formation of an MLA and would welcome avisit from an Executive Councillor. (LawrenceTeh is to be encouraged to include a visit to SriLanka in the future).

(d) Email from Swedish MLA commending arecent visit to the Swedish MLA by DieterSchwampe at its annual meeting as showing thebenefits from interaction between MLAs.

(e) Email from Dieter Schwampe reporting on aninitiative between Baltic MLAs (Denmark,Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Russia,Sweden and potentially Estonia) to copy themodel of regional co-operation betweennorthern European MLAs (France, Germany,Netherlands and UK).

(f) Email exchange Francesco Berlingieri: 22/25May 2015 concerning the inclusion of theTravaux Preparatoires of the ArrestConventions in the next edition of his work on“Arrest of Ships.”

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17. Future meetings:

(a) Virtual meeting November 2015, on dates to beagreed.

(b) UNCITRAL WGIV: Attendance of Vincent deOrchis and Luccio Pinta

Noted. The Secretary-General reported havingarranged accreditation. (c) CMLA and Dalian Maritime University 14-16

October 2015. The President and The Secretary-General bothreported having received invitations to attend, butboth were not able to accept, largely owing to costimplications, and now because of a clash with NewYork planning meetings. The Administrator suggested, using Dihuang Song’searlier reference to the CMLA and Dalian MaritimeUniversity event, that there might be value inconsidering saying to NMLAs that if an NMLAintends to hold an international event, it mayconsider inviting the CMI to send a representative toparticipate in the conference, thereby getting valuefor their subscriptions. CMI will, in return, not onlyput the event on the CMI website but also circulatethe event to all other NMLAs. In this way, CMIcould show NMLAs that holding events was a goodway of being active, generating revenue and payingsubscriptions.

18. Any other business.

There being no other business, the meeting ended at16h30. The President closed by thanking Benoit Goemans,Andrew Taylor and Louis Mbanefo, all of whomwere attending their last EXCO meeting, for theirsterling work for the CMI over many years.

STUART HETHERINGTON JOHN HARE

President Secretary-General

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1. Report of the Credentials Committee

Chris Davis reported that the Assembly had beenproperly convened with notice of the Agenda astabled, that a quorum of member associations waspresent, and that, in terms of the Constitution, allmember associations represented were entitled to vote.

2. Memorials

The President advised the Assembly of the passingof the following distinguished members of the CMIfamily, (about each of whom he said a few words)and asked all to stand in a moment of silent tribute.(a) Bill Tetley QC (Canada);(b) Hisashi Tanikawa (Japan); (c) Jose Luis Goni (Spain); (d) Charles Goldie (UK);(e) Akihiko Yamamichi (Japan);(f) Eugenio Cornejo Fuller (Chile);(g) Jean Albert Hulliger (Switzerland);(h) David Robles (Panama); (i) Carlos Matheus Gonzalez (Venezuela);

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(j) Geoffrey Hudson (UK); (k) William Dorsey III (USA);(l) Zhu Zengjie (China) Justice Johanne Gautier paid tribute to the late ProfBill Tetley as Honorary Vice-President of the CMI,recording his enormous contribution to maritimelaw and to the CMI.

3. Approval of the Minutes of the Assembly held inDublin on 1 October 2013 (see attachment)

The Secretary-General tabled the minutes of themeeting of the Assembly held in Hamburg on 17June 2014 adoption of which was proposed byAndrew Taylor and seconded by Bob Clyne andwhich were duly adopted, and signed by thePresident and Secretary-General.

4. Matters arising from Minutes of the Assembly heldin Hamburg on 17 June 2014

There were no matters arising other than those to bedealt with in this Agenda.

MINUTES OF THE ASSEMBLY MEETING HELD ON 9 JUNE 2015 AT THE SHERATON ATAKOY HOTEL, ISTANBUL, TURKEY*

Welcome:President Stuart Hetherington welcomed all delegates present.

Participating:

President: STUART HETHERINGTON

Past President: KARL-JOHAN GOMBRII

Vice-Presidents: GIORGIO BERLINGIERIVice-President: CHRISTOPHER DAVIS

Secretary-General: JOHN HARE

Administrator: LAWRENCE TEHTreasurer/Head Office Director: BENOIT GOEMANS

Councillors: ANN FENECHTOMOTAKA FUJITALOUIS MBANEFO

JORGE RADOVICHANDREW TAYLORDIHUANG SONGDIETER SCHWAMPE

ALEXANDER VON ZIEGLER

Member Associations: Member associations were duly represented by delegates listed in the Attendance Registerattached to these minutes.PARAGRAPH NUMBERS BELOW CORRESPOND WITH THOSE OF THE PUBLISHED AGENDA. AN AUDIOVISUAL RECORDING OF THE

FULL ASSEMBLY IS AVAILABLE IN THE VIDEOLIBRARY ON THE CMI WEBSITE AT WWW.COMITEMARITIME.ORG/VIDEOLIBRARY

* Provisional, for approval by the New York Assembly.

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5. Report of the President

The President tabled and delivered his attachedReport which was duly adopted.In his verbal summary the President acknowledgedthe huge burden of work taken on by John Hare asSecretary-General. He expressed the CMI’sgratitude to Benoit Goemans for staying on asTreasurer to await availability of Peter Verstuyftshould the Assembly approve Mr Verstuft’sappointment. He acknowledged and thanked AnneVerlinde for her efficient administration in Antwerpincluding taking over much of the maintenance ofthe CMI website. The President again asked for anychanges to the Executives of NMLAs to be notifiedto Ms Verlinde. The President recorded his thanksto the Belgium MLA and in particular its retiringPresident Karel Stes for his assistance and supportof the CMI during his Presidency. Mention was alsomade of the accounts for 2014 showing a modestsurplus. Turning to the work projects of the CMI hereferred to the considerable amount of work doneby the Judicial Sale IWG, including a presentationin London to the IMO Legal Committee, and thankswere expressed to Henry Li and Jonathan Lux fortheir efforts. Gratitude was similarly expressed toBent Neilsen and to Taco van der Valk and theirIWG for their work on General Average. On thebuilding of the CMI database on the jurisprudenceof conventions, the President asked for NMLA co-operation in submitting material to Prof StephenGirvin at the National University of Singapore toassist in the building of the database in respect of theConventions listed in the Report. Prof Girvin’s emailaddress is sdgirvin@nus.edu.sg.The President also expressed thanks to all the Chairsand Rapporteurs of the International WorkingGroups but also, in particular, to John Hare for allthe work done in preparation of the IstanbulColloquium and next year’s conference in NewYork.

6. Finances

(a) The Treasurer’s report for accounts year ended 31December 2014

The Treasurer tabled and presented his report of theaccounts of the CMI for 2014, with comparativebudgets for 2015/6.

(b) The Treasurer’s accountsThe CMI annual accounts were then tabled andintroduced by the Treasurer. Income for 2014 was€225 991 against expenditure of €215 762 giving asurplus of €10 229 for the year (cf the €11 883 deficitfor 2013). The Treasurer reported further that 2014reserves closed at €630 626.Adoption of the Treasurer’s report and accounts was

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proposed by The Netherlands, seconded by Turkey,and approved by show of hands.

(c) The Auditors’ Report for 2014The Report of the Auditors approving the 2014accounts without reservation was adopted with nodissent, by show of hands.

(d) Budget update for 2015 and Budget for 2016 The Treasurer pointed out to the Assembly that theConstitution requires the Treasurer to preparebudgets for the current year (2015) and a budgetprojection for the next year (2016). As Assembliesare often conducted in the middle of the CMIfinancial year, it is appropriate in mid-year to reviewthe estimated budget for the current year against theactual figures of the first half of that budget year.The Treasurer tabled and presented an updated 2015budget reflecting a projected deficit of €4 210, and aprojected budget deficit for 2016 (without increaseof subscriptions) of €2 800. These projections wouldbe affected by the financial result of the IstanbulColloquium which, upon the good number ofattendees, is expected to generate a reasonablesurplus. They are considerably lower than the deficitprojections submitted to the Assembly in Hamburg(-€18453 for 2016), and accordingly the ExecutiveCouncil had considered at its meeting on 7 June thatit is appropriate that no increase in NMLA leviesneed be considered at this stage.The amended budget figures as tabled at theAssembly were noted and approved, withoutincrease in subscriptions. The President reiteratedhis thanks to the Treasurer for his considerableefforts in relation to the accounts and the budget.

(e) Report of the Chair of the Audit CommitteeMåns Jacobsson tabled and presented the report ofthe Audit Committee, recording first theappreciation of the Committee for the considerableefforts of Benoit Goemans during his time asTreasurer. He explained that the Audit Committee examinesthe audit conducted by the CMI’s appointedauditors and conducts between its members, indepth discussion of the auditor’s report. Owing togeographic separation, these discussions are done bytelephone.The Report of the Audit Committee was proposedby the United States and seconded by Canada, andduly approved, with thanks expressed to MrJacobsson and his committee.

(f) Approval of the Nomination of Der MolMeuldermans & Partners BVBA as auditors for the2015 accounts

Proposed by The Netherlands, seconded by Turkeyand carried by show of hands.

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(g) Report on collection of outstanding subscriptionsVice-President Chris Davis reported on thecollection of current NMLA subscriptions. €20 502was outstanding at 5 June 2015, representing about10% of total billings for the year. Mr Davisacknowledged with thanks the assistance of AnneVerlinde in collecting outstanding accounts.Regarding prior years, the news was alsoencouraging in that the amount due has beenreduced to €47 847, largely as a result of negotiatingsettlements, notably with Jorge Radovich’s assistancewith Latin American collections. Vice-President Davis asked that the Assemblyconfirm his and the President’s authority to continueto negotiate settlements. The President called for aproposer and seconder. Canada proposed and Maltaseconded, and authority was thus confirmed.

(h) CMI Charitable Trust Patrick Griggs tabled the report of the CMICharitable Trust for noting by the Assembly.Mr Griggs notified the Assembly that the Trust had€509 000 in investment holdings, an increase over the€481 000 of the previous year. The Trust’s holdingshave for the past year produced a return of 5,15%.Mr Griggs confirmed that the Charitable Trust hadagain funded the IMLI Prize for the best student,which had been awarded to Ms Vanessia Stewart,who had attended the Istanbul conference, andpresented her paper as part of her prize. Ms Stewartwas congratulated for her award.Mr Griggs undertook to prepare a circular forNMLAs giving a review of the activities of the Trust.

7. Members:

(a) Expulsion of MLAsThe President confirmed that there had been noresponse from the NMLA’s of either Pakistan orBulgaria, and that all reasonable and necessary stepshad been taken to attempt to obtain settlement fromthem. He reminded the Assembly that a resolutionhad been taken in Hamburg to commence expulsionproceedings against Pakistan and Bulgaria. In thecircumstances he considered it appropriate thatboth Associations regrettably now be expelled. The proposal to expel Pakistan was proposed by theUK, and seconded by Sweden. The expulsion ofBulgaria was proposed by Switzerland and secondedby Romania.

(b) New Provisional Member An application for Provisional membership for CaptAhmed Ruhullah of Bangladesh had beenconsidered by the Executive Council at its meetingon 7 June 2015 and recommended that it beaccepted by the Assembly. It was proposed by theUSA and seconded by Nigeria and approved byacclamation.

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(c) Titulary Members/Nominations (see attachments)The President reported the receipt of nominationsfor Titulary Membership which had been consideredand recommended for approval to the Assembly bythe Executive Council. The following distinguished persons were elected byacclamation as Titulary Members:

(i) Jonathan Lux (UK) – Proposed by the CMIEXCO for his considerable work andefforts in relation to the work of the IWGon Judicial Sales over a number of years

(ii) Karel Stes (Belgium) – Proposed by FrankStevens for his significant contributions tothe Belgium MLA and his support of thework being done by the CMI.

8. Meetings – CMI 2016 NewYork

US MLA President Bob Clyne (and Chair of theirCMI2016NewYork Planning Committee) andVincent Foley gave a report on the plans for thecombined CMI/US MLA event set for 3 – 6 May2016. They are working closely with the CMI Presidentand Secretary-General in the planning of theConference. The Midtown Hilton Hotel will be theConference venue, and a roomblock of 250 roomshas been reserved. Professional ConferenceOrganisers have been appointed, and the design of aconference website is under way.Bob Clyne extended an invitation to all present tocome to New York.

9. Work in Progress

The President invited reports from the Chairs ofCMI International Working Groups and StandingCommittees. Reports were duly tabled and presentedin accordance with the Agenda. Copies of the reports may be obtained from the CMIoffice at admin-antwerp@comitemaritime.org andwill be placed on the website.

(a) Acts of Piracy and Maritime Violence Andrew Taylor tabled and presented a piracyupdate, reporting that there had been no reportedSomali piracy attacks in the first quarter of 2015,although there has been an increase in attacks onsmall coastal tankers in SE Asia. Piracy remains aproblem in the Gulf of Guinea.He mentioned that in Denmark and France therehad been compensation orders in favour of piratesfor alleged human rights violations. He noted thatthe UK Piracy Ransom Task Force had published itsreport, and he concluded that though there has beena decrease in the number of incidents of piracyinternationally, the industry should remain vigilant.

(b) Fair Treatment of Seafarers Vice-President Berlingieri presented Olivia Murray’s

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May 2015 report on the Fair Treatment of Seafarers,including continuing cooperation with Seafarers’Rights International. The CMI has now sent out aquestionnaire to update and better assess theapproach of NMLA countries, and replies will beanalysed by the IWG and reported to EXCO.The IWG so-sponsored a paper with SRI and theITF on Fair Treatment in April 2015, for submissionto the IMO Legal Committee 102. The paper wasunanimously adopted.

(c) Recognition of Foreign Judicial Sales of Ships Chair Prof Henry Li tabled the IWG Report, onactivities during the year post-adoption of theinstrument’s text in Hamburg. This includeduploading all documentation relating to JudicialSales to the CMI website, attending and making apresentation at LegCom 102 of the IMO (whichincluded a lunchtime presentation chaired byPatrick Griggs explaining the import of theinstrument), and pointing to further actions topromote the adoption of the instrument.The President commended Prof Li and his team fortheir continuing work, and this acclaim was echoedby all present. The President confirmed that theCMI had yet to find the two promoting countriesnecessary in order for the text to be placed formallyon the agenda of a future LegCom meeting. Heconfirmed that we have also been asked to confirmto the IMO that there is indeed a ‘compelling need’for a convention dealing with judicial sales, andreferred to a letter of enquiry he had addressed inthis regard to all NMLAs. He asked that all NMLAsplease respond as soon as possible. He encouragedall NMLAs to lobby for the promotion of the text,and John O’Connor, for Canada, indicated thatCanada may be prepared to co-promote.

(d) Marine Insurance Jo Grasso, Chair, tabled the report of the MarineInsurance IWG, which was presented by MarcHuybrechts. He reported that following approval byEXCO that the focus of the IWG be limited to fourareas of research, this had been the continuingapproach of the IWG over the past year. These were• That minimum insurance certification berequired by governments;

• That the IMO extend the Bunker Conventionfinancial security requirements to otherconvention security requirements.

• That the IWG put out a questionnaire to NMLAson practices and procedures in the case oftermination of insurance cover.

The IWG had decided to prepare Guidelinesrelating to minimum insurance certification fordiscussion with the IMO and the industry.

(e) Cross-border Insolvency Vice-President Chris Davis tabled and presented the

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report of the Cross Border Insolvency. The IWG hascontinued its evaluation of the replies received onthe May 2012 Questionnaire. It is looking atpossibilities of including this topic as an item on theprogramme for the New York Conference.

(f) Polar ShippingNigel Frawley presented the Report of PolarShipping IWG Chair, Aldo Chircop. He reportedthat Profs Goto (Japan) and Y-K Park (S Korea) hadjoined the IWG with the approval of EXCO. TheIWG is closely involved with the development of thePolar Code, and with a review of private maritimelaw conventions that apply in Polar regions.Particular attention is being given to polar pollutionissues. The Group has a sub-committee dealing withcivil liability in Polar regions.The IWG is working closely with the MLA USparallel committee chaired by Philip Buhler with aview to putting on a joint presentation at the NewYork Conference.Members of the group continue to present papers onpolar issues at international conferences, flying theCMI flag.The Secretary-General commended the PolarShipping IWG on the enormous amount of time andeffort put in by its members, and on the fact that theyhad agreed to meet for both days of the IstanbulColloquium.

(g) Review of the Rules on General Average[Attachment 12]

Taco van der Valk presented the report of the IWGon General Average, and on the significant progressmade during the Istanbul deliberations. He tabledthe working papers filed for Istanbul and reportedthat it would appear that broad agreement had beenreached on two significant areas of reform: Port ofrefuge expenses, and salvage. He expressedconfidence that reforms could be agreed with wideindustry acceptance in time for the New YorkConference.The President thanked the IWG for all the effortthey had devoted to the project over the past year.

(h) Rotterdam RulesTomotaka Fujita as Chair, tabled and presented thereport of the IWG on the Rotterdam Rules. Prof Fujita reported that members of the group havebeen working closely with UNCITRAL, especially inrelation to UNCITRAL’s preparation of an accessionkit for the Rules. The report of the IWG makesreference also to the UNCITRAL Working GroupIV on Electronic Commerce on which the CMI hasagain been represented by observers Alexander vonZiegler in Zurich and Messrs Foley and Nolan inNew York.The IWG will continue to monitor accession to theRules, and promote education on the import of the

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Rules wherever possible. As such it has at this stageno product to produce within a particular time.

(i) Offshore ActivitiesPatrick Griggs, Chair, tabled and presented thereport of the IWG on Offshore Activities.He reported that at the IMO LegCom 102, JorgeRadovich presented a paper dealing with initiativesand desirability of establishing international agreementon liability issues arising from Offshore Activities.The Danish and Indonesian governments alsopresented a paper on model bilateral or multilateralagreements for liability and compensation.These initiatives will be progressed, with input fromthe IWG where appropriate.Mr Griggs and his IWG colleagues convened a fullseminar dealing with Offshore responsibilities andliabilities which took place at Istanbul. The futurework of the IWG will be guided by what emergedfrom that seminar.The President thanked Mr Griggs and his team for amost interesting seminar and commended all for theamount of work clearly put into its preparation.

(j) Cape Town Convention (Since re-named ShipFinancing & Security Practices)

Anne Fenech presented her report of the inauguralmeetings of this new IWG, whose members hadbeen approved at the first Istanbul EXCO meeting.She gave a brief outline to the members and theirlikely contributions to the work of the group.The Secretary-General placed on record that DrFenech had produced a text-book example of howto set up an IWG, and commended her for theenthusiasm of the IWG to date.

(k) Arrest of ShipsVice-President Berlingieri submitted the report ofthe Arrest of Ships IWG, and confirmed that thegroup had prepared a questionnaire on the subjectwhich has been sent out to NMLAs. Once replieswere received, the IWG would begin an analysis andrecommend a way forward.Sir Bernard Eder had been invited to join the IWGand had readily accepted.

(l) Restatement of Lex MaritimaEric van Hooydonk tabled his report on the work ofthis IWG. Prof van Hooydonk’s report to EXCOand the Assembly gave a summary of the proposedscope of work, and its methodology. Both were dulyapproved by EXCO, and noted by the Assembly.The final composition of the group as proposed byProf van Hooydonk was to be held over until thepost Assembly EXCO second Istanbul meeting.

(m) Legal Issues arising from the use of UnmannedShips

The Secretary-General reported that Tom BirchReynardson had proposed that the CMI become

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involved in researching the maritime lawimplications of unmanned craft – the drones of thesea – and that EXCO had approved the project andthe appointment of a new IWG under the chair ofMr Birch Reynardson. It is envisaged that this is atopic where the CMI would be well advised to usethe services of CMI, and that it would be a suitabletopic for New York 2016.The Secretary-General will progress the matter withMr Birch Reynardson with a view to expanding theIWG.

10. Standing Committees

(a) CMI Charitable Trust (This has been dealt with above, and is not aStanding Committee of the CMI, but in fact anindependent committee of Trustees.)

(b) Young CMIChair Taco van der Valk reported on activitiesrelating to Young CMI over the year. He has hadapproaches from young lawyers all over the world tobecome involved with CMI work. There have beenmeetings in Europe for the last ten years, and effortsare continually being made to liaise with those youngmaritime lawyers groups, such as the initiative inHamburg last year.There is considerable support by younger lawyers forthe Istanbul colloquium.The IWG continues to promote the CMI viaLinkedIn.

(c) Constitution Committee The Secretary-General presented the report of Jean-Francois Peters, Chair of the ConstitutionCommittee. The committee, without PatriceRembauville-Nicolle, met in Antwerp in Februaryand discussed issues that need to be addressed. Itwas decided that the committee should firstundertake a clean-up of the current texts (withoutamendments of substance) and also checkconsistency between the English and French texts.It should then move forward to address anysubstantial amendments.The Secretary-General confirmed that he had beenasked by some NMLAs to look at the nominationand election procedures as reported in the minutesof the Hamburg Assembly, and that this would beundertaken as part of the general review of theconstitution. He pointed out that any amendments of theconstitution require 60 days’ notice to NMLAs and a2/3 majority vote of the Assembly. The Committeewould try to process any amendments well in timefor the New York Assembly, and in the processwould seek both the approval of EXCO and in theinput of member associations as required by thepresent constitution.

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The Secretary-General then asked the Assembly toapprove a mandate to be given to Jean-FrancoisPeters to enable him to satisfy all formalitiesrequired of the CMI by the Belgian authorities, suchas but not limited to filing amendments with theBanque Carrefour des Enterprises and publicisesuch with Moniteur Belge.The Assembly approved that the Secretary-Generalissue such authority to Mr Peters.

(d) General Average Interest rates Taco van der Valk, on behalf of Bent Nielsen, Chairof this Standing Committee explained that the YorkAntwerp Rules require the Assembly to fix the GAinterest rate for the ensuing year. He tabled theCommittee’s report which recommends a rate of2.5% for the period 1 January 2016 – 31 December2016. This proposal was proposed by Canada,seconded by The Netherlands, and carried by ashow of hands, together with the proviso thatEXCO be authorised to vary the rate should therebe a change of circumstances over the next fewmonths warranting a recommendation from theCommittee that a variation of the rate be made.

(e) Planning Committee The Secretary-General, as Chair of the PlanningCommittee, submitted his report. He stressed thatthough there had been no formal meeting of thecommittee during the past year, he has been engagedin micro planning for the Istanbul and lately for theNew York events. This has been somewhat at theexpense of macro planning, though planning hadidentified new topics all now covered by CMIresearch initiatives, including:• Shipping Implications of the Cape TownConvention

• Ship Nomenclature• Cybercrime in Shipping• Maritime Law and Unmanned Craft• Maritime Law and Refugee Migration at SeaAll but the last (which is an Ad hoc Committee)were now covered by IWGs. All are potential topicsfor CMI2016NewYork and all could attract theparticipation of CMI members.A further report will be submitted to the New YorkAssembly.

(f) Jurisprudence on Maritime ConventionsSteven Girvin gave a report from the floor, andconfirmed the appointment of a full-time researchassociate, starting on 1st July 2015. The immediatetask is to look at existing information on the CMIdatabase. He wants first to familiarise himself withthe way information is stored, presented andaccessible and is looking at designing a template tomake contributions easier. Prof Girvin suggests thatthe website be designed to hyperlink summaries tofull judgments.

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(g) Implementation and Promotion of MaritimeConventions

Deucalion Rediadis as Rapporteur of this Committeereported that the CMI still awaits responses to thequestionnaire sent out during 2013.Mr Rediadis confirmed that the Committee wouldcontinue to monitor the implementation but thatthere was apparently little interest or urgency in themaritime community to implement internationalinstruments. The President appealed to all NMLAs to respond tothis questionnaire.

(h) Publications: Yearbook and Newsletter; LinkedIn,website and Handbook on Maritime Conventions

Vice-President Giorgio Berlingieri reported that the2014/3 Newsletter covering the last quarter of 2014is now on the CMI website. The 2014 Handbook isin print, with copies being available on order fromthe CMI Antwerp office (admin-antwerp@comitemaritime.org). There has been some progress on the CMI Handbookon Maritime Conventions, and the Secretary-Generalwill follow up this project with Frank Wiswall, who isthe custodian of the Handbook. Prof Wiswall hasrecently submitted a further proposed table ofcontents for the new volume.The Secretary-General reported that the papers ofthe Hamburg conference, sans Assembly are nowavailable on the CMI website, and that a favourableresponse had been received for this new initiative.The Istanbul proceedings, including the Assembly,would be recorded and made available on the site.Gregory Timogenis raised the issue of circulation ofyearbooks and a past decision not to circulate hardcopies of yearbooks to NMLAs. He suggested thatthat decision was motivated by CMI finances at thattime and that hardcopy yearbooks should now beavailable to NMLAs in exchange for payment. TheSecretary-General replied that 3 copies of theYearbooks were currently mailed to NMLAs but thatfurther copies could be ordered (while stocks last)from the Secretariat, at a cost to the subscriber.

11. Ad Hoc/New Committees

(a) Arbitration Luc Grellet as Chair of this IWG tabled a report andreferred to the Questionnaire prepared by the IWGwhich the President had circulated to NMLAs inFebruary 2015. The gist of the questionnaire is toseek the opinion of NMLAs as to whether or not theCMI should continue to be involved in matters ofmaritime arbitration, and if so, whether it shouldprepare model rules.The group will report to EXCO once more repliesare received, and again the President appealed to allNMLAs to respond to the questionnaire.

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(b) Ship Nomenclature Frank Nolan, the Chair of this new IWG presentedhis report, and indicated the identity of the IWGmembers, most of whom had held a meeting inIstanbul on 8th June 2015. He explained that thepurpose is to survey what definitions of ships exist inlaws around the world and the unintendedconsequences that can arise from differences indefinition. Dr Bulent Sozer had volunteered to jointhe IWG.The IWG hopes to be able to make a presentation atthe New York Conference.

(c) The Future of the CMILiz Burrell made a verbal report to the Assembly.She confirmed that there had been telephonecontact between the members of her group, and thatshe the group had identified issues to be dealt with,such as frequency of CMI meetings and the website.She hopes to be in a position to report to the NewYork Assembly.

(d) Potential new studiesSee Planning Committee report in para 10(e) above.

12. EU Rapporteur

Vincent Power as the CMI EU Rapporteurpresented a summary of a comprehensive reportwhich he has prepared for the CMI. He has agreed that the full report be posted on theCMI website, and that he will provide the CMI withperiodic updates.The Secretary-General thanked Dr Power for hisconsiderable input and for allowing the CMI to putthe fruits of his research onto the CMI site.

13. CMI Regional Office in Singapore

The Administrator reported that the registration ofthe representative office of the CMI in Singaporehad been renewed for a further year to April 2016,at which time its 3 year period (allowed underSingapore law) will lapse. It is then usual to upgradeto Branch Status. An attempt will be made topersuade the Singaporean authorities as to theuniqueness of CMI so as to have the 3 year termextended. A number of events had taken place overthe past year involving the Administrator both inSingapore and the Region, especially in conjunctionwith UNCITRAL.

14. Elections

The President invited Mme Justice Johanne Gautieras Chair of the Nominating Committee to present

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her report. That report recorded the process ofcalling for nominations, and seeking the input ofNMLAs as required by the Constitution. Havingconsidered that input, the Committee recommendedthe election of officers as follows:

(i) Stuart Hetherington as President for asecond term

(ii) Giorgio Berlingieri as Vice-President for asecond term

(iii) Tomotaka Fujita as Executive Councillorfor a second term

(iv) Luc Grellet as Executive Councillor(v) Taco van der Valk as Executive Councillor.

The President informed the Assembly that inaccordance with the Constitution, Mr PeterVerstuyft had been nominated as Treasurer tosucceed Mr Goemans with effect from 1 September2016. The President confirmed that there had been noother nominations received for any of the aboveoffices, and therefore in accordance with Rule 4 ofthe Rules of Procedure declared all nominees wouldbe duly elected to office by acclamation.The Assembly noted the elections by acclamation.

15. Any other business

Closing remarksThe President thanked the Turkish Maritime LawAssociation and in particular its organisingcommittee chaired by Dr Bulent Sozer and SaminUman, for hosting an enjoyable and successfulColloquium; he also thanked all presenters of papers,Etix and their team of Professional ConferenceOrganisers, the audio visual teams and others whohad contributed to the stunning success of Istanbul2015, especially the sponsors, Turkish ShipownersAssociation. The President noted the retirement from theExecutive Council of Messrs Andrew Taylor andLouis Mbanefo, and thanked them for theircontributions to the work and fellowship of the CMI.He then asked out-going Treasurer Benoit Goemansto come up to the podium to receive the thanks ofthe CMI for his long and loyal service to the CMI,and presented him with a clock as a gesture of thanks– which were heartily endorsed by the acclaim of allpresent.

There being no other business the meeting closed at18h00.

STUART HETHERINGTON JOHN HARE

President Secretary-General

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MINUTES OF THE SECOND EXECUTIVE COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON 9 JUNE 2015AT THE SHERATON ATAKOY HOTEL, ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Participating:

President: STUART HETHERINGTON

Past President: KARL-JOHAN GOMBRII

Vice-Presidents: GIORGIO BERLINGIERICHRISTOPHER DAVIS

Secretary-General: JOHN HARE

Administrator: LAWRENCE TEHTreasurer/Head Office Director: *Councillors: DIHUANG SONG

JORGE RADOVICHTOMOTAKA FUJITAALEXANDER VON ZIEGLERDIETER SCHWAMPEANN FENECHTACO VAN DER VALKLUC GRELLET

* Benoit Goemans who is in transition to retirement until Peter Verstuyft takes over on 1 September wasexcused from attendance

5. Yearbooks

The Administrator enquired about the possibility ofproper search facilities across documentation on theCMI site, and the Secretary-General undertook tolook into a search feature again. The existing VanillaBrief quote to programme a search engine wasconsidered too expensive when there are proprietarysearch engines available. The Administrator stressedthat where possible documents be scanned in asearchable pdf format, allowing word searches. Asdecided in the 7 June EXCO meeting consideration isto be given to identifying a new manager for thewebsite.

Resolution: It was agreed that three copies be sent toeach NMLA and that additional copies may be sentupon payment of postage.

6. Arbitration

Luc Grellet reported that work continues in gettingresponses from NMLAs, which will in turn lead to areport to EXCO. The President indicated that theNew York Convention might be topical for IWG tostudy and present to the New York Conference. Heproposed that M Grellet liaise with US MLArepresentative on arbitration and work on aprogramme session. The President reminded EXCOof the IBA approach re New York, and suggested thatthis could be a topic in which the IBA might like to be

1. Apologies

No apologies were recorded.

2. Welcome

The President welcomed all present, especially LucGrellet and Taco van der Valk, as newly electedmembers of EXCO, and congratulated PeterVerstuyft (in absentia) and Tomotaka Fujita on theirre-election.

3. Restatement of the Lex Maritima Resolution

The composition of the IWG as proposed by Eric vanHooydonk was approved: Eric Van Hooydonk(Chair), John Hare, Alexander von Ziegler, JesusCasas Robla, Aybek Ahmedov;, Frank Smeele,Andreas Maurer, Massimiliano Rimaboschi, FilippoLorenzon, Michael Sturley, Tomotaka Fujita, GustavoPares, Miso Mudric.

4. CMI Young Members

The revival of the prize was discussed and it wasagreed to try to award it in time for the winner topresent his or her paper at CMI2016NewYork. ThePresident advised that the CMI Charitable Trust hadapproved funding the prize. The Secretary-General will seek to identify the criteriafor the prize in time for the E-meeting.

involved. The study could involve the Singaporeperspective and SMA.

7. Cybercrime

Resolution: The IWG was duly approved, and Tacovan der Valk appointed as Chair. Sebastien Lootgieterand Robert Hoepel were proposed by the Secretary-General, he confirming that he had spoken with bothand that they were willing to serve. It was agreed thatthey be appointed, with Mr Hoepel as Rapporteur,and that the Secretary-General liaise with Mr van derValk to make contact with the MLAUS cybercrimecommittee with whom the Secretary-General hadheld discussions in New York in March with a view toinviting an MLAUS member onto the IWG.

8. Singapore Regional Office

The Administrator was asked to make enquiriesabout extending the representative office status for afurther three years, and to report to the NovemberEXCO meeting.

9. Offshore Activities IWG

Proposals from Patrick Griggs for the way forwardfor this IWG were tabled and approved as follows: 1. That the IWG continue to work with the IMO

Intersessional Correspondence Group to improvethe so-called “Zero Draft” of Guidance noteswhich are designed to assist states in negotiatingbilateral or regional agreements on issues ofpollution from offshore activities.

2. That the IWG draft a short instrument forpotential international agreement which would, inthe context of offshore activities, require statesissuing licences for offshore drilling to treat alldamage caused by the licensee as if it had beensuffered within the territory of the state issuingthe licence. This would mean that the efforts ofthe licensing state to establish the financial

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credentials of the licensee will also benefitpotential claimants (but without the state issuingthe licence itself being itself at risk). Theinstrument will also need to deal with the issue ofjurisdiction and proper law.

3. That some thought may also be given to thedrafting of a standard clause to this effect for usein trade treaties.

EXCO Resolved that Prof Henning Jessen beappointed as a new member of the IWG.

10. Anne Verlinde

(Ms Verlinde having recused herself) The President,the Treasurer and the Secretary-General all endorsedthe quality of Anne Verlinde’s work. She has beenoffered part time employment at the Royal BelgianShipowners’ office, and the CMI has no objection toher taking this on. However it was agreed that MsVerlinde’s weekly working hours for the CMI beincreased from 13 hours to 16, giving her two full daysa week for the CMI.

11. Cape Town Convention IWG

Resolution: That this IWG be renamed: ShipFinancing Security Practices.

12. Promotion and Implementation of Conventions

Resolution: That Peter Laurijssen to be added to theIWG.

13. Website

The Secretary-General asked all EXCO members tospend time on the CMI site and report broken links orinaccuracies to Anne Verlinde.There being no further business, the meeting adjournedat 18h30.

STUART HETHERINGTON JOHN HARE

President Secretary-General

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Paragraph numbers of these minutes correspond tothe Agenda which was sent to all EXCO members,with supporting annexures, during the week prior to23 November 2015. The President, in preparationfor this eMeeting, explained the procedures to beadopted. In essence, EXCO members were enjoinedto peruse the documentation and submit first roundcomments to him and to the Secretary-General byclose of business Tuesday 24th November 2015. Theresponses were then collated and circulated toEXCO members the following day, for furthersecond round comments the day after. Upon close ofthese second round comments, the Presidentsubmitted a Final Round Document, withconclusions. It is upon these documents, andparticularly the latter, that these minutes areprepared.

1. Opening remarks by the President

The President welcomed EXCO members to thisvirtual eMeeting, repeating the sorrow he hadpreviously expressed to Luc Grellet and all ourfriends in Paris over the recent terrible terroristevents of the previous week. He also thanked allthose who had submitted reports for the benefit ofthe meeting and noted that John Hare would, bycoincidence, be in Sydney during the course of themeeting while travelling on a private visit to NewZealand. A particular welcome was given to Peter Verstuyft

24

who has formally taken over the role of Treasurerand Head Office Director since the meeting inIstanbul in June. The President particularly thankedAnn Verlinde, Peter Verstuyft and John Hare fortheir detailed reports which were tabled at themeeting and to the Secretary General for his reportsof 1st July and 28th October 2015 reporting on hisactivities, including his meeting in New York todiscuss the New York Conference.

Conclusion:President’s Opening Remarks noted with thanks,and sympathies were conveyed to the French peoplethrough Luc Grellet on the terrible terroristatrocities of recent days in Paris.

2. Minutes of Executive Council Meetings in Istanbulon Sunday 7 June 2015 and Tuesday 9 June 2015at the Sheraton Atakoy Hotel, Istanbul

Resolved:That the draft Minutes of Executive CouncilMeeting held in Istanbul on 7 and 9 June 2015 at theSheraton Atakoy Hotel be approved, corrected asfollows:(i) By correcting the names of the Liability for

Wrongful Arrest (IWG) and Gustavo OmanaPerez.

(ii) Paragraph 9(j) by replacing the words “to it –identifying” with “about”.

MINUTES OF DELIBERATIONS OF THE CMI EXECUTIVE COUNCIL HELD BY EMAILCONFERENCE DURING THE WEEK COMMENCING 23 NOVEMBER 2015, CHAIRED BY

THE PRESIDENT FROM HIS OFFICE IN SYDNEY*

Participating:

President: STUART HETHERINGTON

Past President: KARL-JOHAN GOMBRII

Vice-Presidents: GIORGIO BERLINGIERICHRISTOPHER DAVIS

Secretary-General: JOHN HARE

Administrator: LAWRENCE TEHTreasurer/Head Office Director: PETER VERSTUYFTCouncillors: ANN FENECH

TOMOTAKA FUJITAJORGE RADOVICHDIHUANG SONGDIETER SCHWAMPE

ALEXANDER VON ZIEGLERLUC GRELLET

TACO VAN DER VALK

* Provisional, for the approval by EXCO at New York.

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3. Financial and administration reports

Conclusion 1. All reports were noted with thanks, especially the

detailed reports received from John Hare whichenable Executive Councillors to keep abreast ofcurrent developments.

2. Peter Verstuyft was welcomed by all to his newrole as Treasurer and Head Office Director.

3. The move of the CMI head office secretariat tothe Belgium Shipowners’ Office had beenaccomplished successfully and John Hare’sassistance was greatly appreciated.

4. The CMI’s financial position continues to be inline with expectations, justifying the decision inIstanbul not to raise subscriptions.

5. Priority is to be given to identifying a newwebsite manager and to develop the archive ofCMI publications.

4. Istanbul Conference financial results: report ofJohn Hare dated 16 November 2015

The report of John Hare was noted with thanks. Thefinancial result of the Istanbul Colloquium was verysatisfactory, especially considering that the “surplus”of €12,000 is now, as accurately as it can be,expressed after taking into account CMI’s ownexpenses in organising such an event.

5. Collection of financial contributions: report ofChris Davis

Conclusion With Anne’s assistance in following up MLAs they arepaying their subscriptions in a more timely fashion.However, there are still some problems. MLAs inSouth and Central America and Portugal for example.The most serious defaulter is Russia. The meetingdecided that the Russian MLA should be advised thatunless payment of arrears is received, or a satisfactoryproposal for payment of arrears is made early in 2016the Executive Council will have to considerrecommending to the Assembly in New York that theexpulsion process will have to be commenced. ChrisDavis’s report was noted with thanks.

6. Membership

Conclusion Correspondence has been entered into with anumber of putative MLAs and their development isto be encouraged, although the correspondenceconcerning a Baltic regional MLA needs to beconsidered in the light of the fact that there isalready a provisional member in Latvia and Russiahas its own MLA. The creation of new MLAs inAfrica, the Emirates and Cyprus are particularly tobe encouraged. An application for provisionalmembership in Cuba might be forthcoming.

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7. Executive Council elections at Assembly meetingin New York

Conclusion Song Dihuang’s retirement from EXCO in NewYork was noted with sadness. The eligibility for re-election of Chris Davis, Lawrence Teh, AlexanderVon Ziegler and Dieter Schwampe was also noted.

8. Conference in New York: report of Secretary-General dated 28 october 2015; President’s letterto MLAS dated 5 November 2015

Conclusion The President’s letter to Presidents of MLAs dated 5November 2015 attaching a preliminary noticeconcerning the joint CMI Conference with theMLAUS’s 2016 Spring Meeting as well as JohnKimball’s letter concerning sponsorship were noted. The Report of the Secretary-General dated 28October 2015 and the developing work programmeof the New York Conference were noted withinterest and thanks were recorded to John Hare andthe President for all their hard work. The liaisonbetween the Chairs of IWGs and MLAUSCommittee chairs, particularly since the Bermudaresort meeting of the MLAUS, has assisted.Sponsorship will be the key to making what isrecognised as being an expensive location for thisevent a sound financial conference as well as being ahighly successful event. Sponsorship from outsidethe US should be encouraged.

9. International Working Groups

(a) Judicial SalesThe President’s letter to Henry Li reporting on hisdiscussions concerning this topic with Fred Kenney,Dorota Lost-Siemenska and Jan de Boer at the IMOin October were noted, as was the correspondencebetween the President and President elect of theSouth Korean MLA. The President’s letter to HenryLi identified what needs to be done by the IWG inadvance of the next IMO Legal Committee Meetingtaking place from 7 to 9 June 2016, namely thesubmission of a report by 1 April 2016 which needsto have at least two State sponsors. China has alreadyagreed to sponsor this work and it is hoped thatSouth Korea will also support it. Other countrieshave also been approached and their response isawaited. The paper also needs to demonstrate the“compelling need” for this draft instrument to bemade into an International Convention. The IWG isworking on this paper.

(b) Review of the Rules on General Average The President’s letter to MLAs dated 30 October2015, which attached the report of the meeting of theISC held in Istanbul between 6 and 7 June 2015,(extended) draft for CMI Guidelines on General

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Average, and a copy of the judgment of the EnglishCommercial Court in the matter of The Longchampand the fact that an ISC meeting is to take place inLondon on 7 and 8 December 2015 were noted withthanks to Bent Nielsen, Taco van der Valk andRichard Cornah for all their work. The meetingnoted the importance in ensuring that MLAssupport whatever compromise is reached by theindustry and especially the key stakeholders. It wasalso noted that it is important that MLAs have all therelevant documents available well before the NewYork conference so that they are aware of the textand the outstanding issues to be discussed in NewYork in time to give them their full consideration.

(c) Cross-Border Insolvency: Report of Chris DavisThe report of Chris Davis was noted with thanks. Itidentified three principal legal settings for cross-border marine insolvencies: EC Regulation1346/2000 of the EU; the UNCITRAL Model Lawon Cross-Border Insolvency; and the uncertaintywhich arises where either neither of those regimesapplies or where one regime applies but otherjurisdictions are not subject to either regime. TheIWG is looking at alternative solutions: a protocol tothe UNCITRAL Model Law, specifically addressingin rem actions, or developing a set of best practicesbased on the comparative analysis of the replies tothe questionnaire received to date and, perhaps,encouraging countries that have a substantialmaritime sector and have yet to adopt a cross-borderinsolvency legal regime to do so in an effort topromote harmonisation of the law of this area.Reference was also made to the new EC RegulationNo. 2015/848. Chris Davis’ report also noted liaisonwith the US MLA Committee on Bankruptcy andInsolvency and the preparation of a jointpresentation or panel discussion in New York.

Resolution: It was agreed that Olaf Hartenstein (Germany) beadmitted to the IWG.

(d) Polar Shipping The report of Aldo Chircop was noted with thanks.It has identified the IWG’s subgroups as:• Conventions;• Load lines;• Civil liability;• Polarworthiness; and • Collision avoidance regulationsand noted that liaison with the MLA US’ssubcommittees, including InternationalOrganisations, Conventions and Standards;Offshore Industry; Regulation of Vessel Operations,Safety, Security and Navigation, and Fisheries hadresulted in a full day programme for the New Yorkconference being developed.

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(e) Marine Insurance The report of Joe Grasso was noted with thanks. Itreported that the IWG had continued to work ondraft guidelines for governments relating tomandatory insurance coverage under certaininternational maritime Conventions and it is hopedto finalise that in the near future and to have thatprocess completed in time for the New YorkConference. It also reported that there had beenliaison with the MLA US Committee on MarineInsurance in preparation for the New YorkConference where the draft guidelines and also apanel discussion on developments in marineinsurance law are likely to be debated.

(f) Offshore Activities

Resolution: It was agreed that Aurelio Fernandez-Concheso(Venezuela) be added to the IWG.

(g) Rotterdam Rules The report of Tomotaka Fujita was noted withthanks. This reported that there is to be a two hoursession on Carriage of Goods by Sea at the New YorkConference, based on the suggestion made by thePolish MLA that CMI could carry out a comparativeanalysis of how different countries deal withjurisdiction and arbitration clauses in sea carriagedocuments. There has been liaison with the Chair ofthe MLAUS Carriage of Goods Committee andMichael Sturley, since the Bermuda Resort meeting.The report also referred to the Second Expert GroupMeeting in August 2015 convened by UNCITRAL inorder to draft an “Accession Kit of the RotterdamRules”. The meeting noted that Michael Sturleyremains optimistic of US ratification of theRotterdam Rules but that the State Department is stilldealing with some US ports over ratification.

(h) Fair Treatment of SeafarersThe Opening Remarks of the President suggestedthat consideration be given to merging the two newtopics of Pandemic Response and Migration at Sea(which the IMO has referred to CMI) with thisIWG. Reference is made to (p)(iii) and (iv) below.

(i) Acts of Piracy and Maritime Violence The report of Andrew Taylor was noted with thanks.This report identified an overall reduction in thenumber of serious piracy attacks this year but thereis an emerging new geography of piracy, particularlySoutheast Asia and West Africa. A troubling figurehe identified was that 266 crew members have beentaken hostage, 13 injured, 10 kidnapped and onekilled in the first nine months of 2015.

(j) Ship Finance, Security Practices Ann Fenech’s report and its attached article by JohnBradley in “Marine Money” were noted with thanks

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and interest. Her report noted that a draftQuestionnaire is being prepared and that contacthas been made with the MLAUS Committee. Anagenda for a joint meeting has been prepared.

(k) Ship Nomenclature

Resolution: It was agreed that Massimiliano Musi (Italy) beadded to the IWG.

(l) Restatement of the General Principles of LexMaritima

The Opening Remarks of the President advised thatEric Van Hooydonk, the originator and Chair of thisproject, had not been able to develop this work sinceIstanbul. Some concerns were raised as to the lack ofa defined goal and a plan following the workingmethods of the CMI. The President gratefullyaccepted Alexander Von Ziegler’s offer to assist inthe formulation of the work plan.

(m) Liability for Wrongful Arrest The report of Giorgio Berlingieri was noted withthanks. That report advised that an extension oftime had been given to MLAs to respond to thequestionnaire by the end of the year and that liaisonhad taken place with the chair of the MLAUSPractice and Procedure Committee for a jointsession in New York. Giorgio Berlingieri alsoforeshadowed the further expansion of the ISC oncemore responses to the questionnaire had beenreceived, including seeking a member from theSpanish MLA to join the IWG (as that country is aState party to the 1999 Arrest Convention), althoughone member of ExCo considered that Spain’sratification may be contrary to European law. SongDihuang also suggested that a Chinese lawyer beinvited to join the IWG.

(n) Unmanned Ships The report of Tom Birch-Reynardson was noted withthanks. It reported that there had been two meetingsof the IWG and consideration was being given tomaking a report at the New York Conference whichwould contain a legal overview of the way in whichunmanned ships will need to have a legal regimewithin which to operate in respect of National Law,Territorial Law and International Law, a technicaloverview of the present situation in relation totechnological developments, a legal session on howSOLAS Chapter V and COLREGS will be applicable,and consideration of the Liability Conventions. TomBirch-Reynardson also foreshadowed the need toenlarge the IWG with representatives from the FarEast and the United States.

Resolution: It was agreed that Henrik Ringbom (Finland) beadded to the IWG.

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(o) Cyber crimeIt was noted from the Opening Remarks by thePresident that this topic has excited considerableattention in the MLAUS to the extent that a newMLAUS Committee has been formed under thechairmanship of Joe Walsh and that one of the otherCommittees which is very concerned aboutcybercrime is the Terminal Operations Committee,chaired by Nash Bilisoly. Song Dihuang suggestedthat it may be appropriate to involve a Chineselawyer at an appropriate time. Resolution: It was agreed that Elias Bestani (Argentina) be addedto the IWG.

(p) Ad hoc Committees (i) ArbitrationLuc Grellet’s report was noted with thanks. This

reported that in response to the questionnaire anumber of MLAs considered that CMI should notplay a role in maritime arbitration while someconsidered that it should play a role, including toprovide information on arbitration through itswebsite and offer its knowhow in maritime disputesto arbitration centres. The report also noted thatconsideration is being given with the MLAUS to ajoint session to study enforcement procedures ofarbitration awards under the new Convention. Themeeting encouraged the setting up of a paneldiscussion on recognition and enforcement in thecontext of the New York Convention. Lawrence Tehexpressed interest in becoming involved with thisCommittee, and was duly appointed to it

(ii) Liability of Classification SocietiesKarl Gombrii noted that this Ad hoc Committee

has in fact been reconstituted as an IWG in Istanbuland reported that its focus will be on the desirabilityand possible format and content of rules orrecommendations regarding Limitation of Liability.He foreshadowed extending the size of the IWG inorder to include representatives from ICS and IACS.Luc Grellet expressed interest in joining this IWG inview of his experience of acting for classificationsocieties.

(iii) Pandemic ResponseThe questionnaire and comments made in his

Opening Remarks by the President on this topic,Fair Treatment of Seafarers and Refugee Migrationat Sea were noted and discussed.

Resolution: There was general agreement that, for both this topicand Migration at Sea, it would be sensible to askOlivia Murray if she would take responsibility forthese topics under the general umbrella of FairTreatment of Seafarers, as being public law issueswhich had been instigated by the IMO and was ofconsiderable interest to the ICS.

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(iv) Refugee Migration at Sea The comments made on this topic in the

Secretary General’s Report of 28 October werenoted with thanks. There was general agreementthat this Committee should be brought within theFair Treatment of Seafarers umbrella, if OliviaMurray is willing for that to happen, subject to JohnHare’s reservation that it not be subsumedcompletely and retain its separate identity. The bestsolution would appear to be to have a separatesubcommittee of the Fair Treatment of SeafarersIWG dealing with each of Pandemic Response andMigration at Sea which John Hare will drive.

10. Standing Committees

(a) Jurisprudence on Maritime Conventions: In the absence of any report from Stephen Girvin,there have been no developments in relation to thisCommittee. Giorgio Berlingieri noted that theItalian MLA has an IWG which collectsjurisprudence on certain conventions and queriedwhether the template used by Il Diritto Marittimomight be suitable for the Standing Committee. Tacovan der Valk suggested that he and GiorgioBerlingieri discuss the way forward for thisCommittee with Stephen Girvin which suggestionwas readily accepted by the President.

(b) Implementing and Promoting the Ratification ofMaritime Conventions

The report of Deucalion Rediadis was noted withthanks. This reported on the 15 replies to thequestionnaire and identified two distinct groups ofConventions: those with wide acceptance and thosewith few accessions. In relation to the formerjurisdictions would need to be targeted where CMIand ICS may not be represented. This may requirevisits to “educate” governments by way ofpresentations in seminars or conferences and may haveto be organised via the IMO. Teams would have to beset up of perhaps two or three individuals. As to thelatter, these conventions would need to be promotedin jurisdictions where CMI / ICS is present but also injurisdictions where there is no representative. The report also noted that there seems to be avarying degree of influence of an MLA or ICSmember in the different countries from whomresponses have been received to questionnaires. In relation to the 11 Conventions, the reportidentified the main reasons for non-ratification asfollows:Rotterdam Rules: Ratification will depend onaccession by each State’s major trading partners.HNS: Burdensome procedures and accession willdepend on neighbouring States.Wreck Removal Convention: There is no commonreason apparent.

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Recycling Convention: Ratification by States withrecycling capacity is relevant, hence no urgency forother States to ratify it themselves.Seafarers Identity Documents Convention (SID):Burdensome procedures; data protection issues andno added value are the principal reasons. Arrest Convention 1999: There is a preference forthe 1952 Convention and EU member States defer toEU Regulations on jurisdiction in civil andcommercial matters.The other five conventions are widely accepted inthe 15 jurisdictions from which substantive replieshave been received. As the report noted, both the promotion ofratification and monitoring the implementation ofconventions are at the core of CMI’s raison d’etreand, as such, should be permanently on the CMIAgenda. Those two activities are of course distinctand the Committee’s work, it is suggested, should bedivided accordingly, necessitating a secondRapporteur and some more members. PeterLaurijssen had been added to the IWG in Istanbul.It is also suggested that a further member from acommon law background, and possibly fromacademia, be appointed to this Committee.The meeting agreed that this is a most importantaspect of the work of CMI and the presentcommittee should be encouraged to continue itswork and recommend new members.

(c) Young CMI The report of Taco van der Valk was noted with thanks. There was considerable discussion (to be continued inNew York) as to whether the Chair of the group shouldcontinue to be a member of the Executive Council. Itwas concluded that the Chair should be either: “Amember of Executive Council and its leaders should bemembers of the Committee or its Chair should beappointed by the Executive Council and the dulyappointed Chair should report to a designated memberof the Executive Council”. Taco van der Valk is todiscuss these alternatives and prepare a further reportfor the ExCo meeting in New York.

Resolution: There was unanimous approval for the suggestionthat the age limit for this group be limited to 40.

(d) Constitution CommitteeJohn Hare’s comments that the work is underway ona report to ExCo on changes to the Constitutionwere noted.

(e) General Average Interest Rates It was noted that the Committee had advised thatthere was no recommendation to increase theinterest rate for 2016 from that which had beendecided in Istanbul. It was therefore resolved not tomake any change to the interest rate.

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(f) Planning CommitteeThe comments made in his Opening Remarks by thePresident were noted to the effect that theCommittee was taking second place to theorganisation of the Hamburg, Istanbul and NewYork meetings but will need to be revived after theNew York Conference, as were John Hare’scomments that he will ensure a full report isprepared for New York.

11. Imo Legal Committee

The President’s memorandum dated 17 June 2015reporting on his recent visit to the IMO LegalCommittee which dealt with the topics of: JudicialSales, Migration - Refugee issues, Marine Insurance,Offshore Activities, Ratification and Implementationof Conventions and Technical Co-operation Activitieswas noted. Alexander Von Ziegler queried whetherthe CMI Charitable Trust should be involved in thelatter. The President has asked the Malta MLA toconsider how IMLI can be used to further CMI’scontacts with African countries.

12. Publications

The report of Giorgio Berlingieri was noted withthanks. This report noted the contents for the firstNews Letter to be published next year andYearbook 2015.It was suggested during the meeting (and readilyagreed to by Anne Verlinde) that she could postgeneral messages on CMI’s LinkedIn Group. SongDihuang referred to social apps such as“WhatsApp” and “Wechat”.

13. CMI Regional Office in Singapore: report ofLawrence Teh

The report, and further comments of Lawrence Teh,were noted with thanks. He is to be commended onall his efforts to galvanise MLAs and encourage theformation of MLAs in the countries in the regionthat he has visited, including Thailand, India, SouthKorea, China and Indonesia, with a forthcomingvisit to Dubai. It was agreed that Lawrence Tehshould seek an extension for the existence of therepresentative office in Singapore.

14. EU representation

There being no further report from Vincent Powersince Istanbul, there have been no furtherdevelopments to report. The Power EU Report hasbeen made available on the CMI website. TheSecretary-General will approach Dr Power for anupdate well in time for New York.

15. CMI – The future

The comments made by the President in hisOpening Remarks were noted with some support for

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a suggestion of holding an MLA Presidents’ meetingduring the New York Conference. The President isto discuss this further with the President of theMLAUS but if such a meeting does not take place,ExCo will have to further consider this matter at itsmeeting in New York.

16. Reports to NMLAs by Executive Councillors

The Opening Remarks of the President encouragingregular contact by ExCo with MLAs was noted, aswere the Guidelines for monitoring MLAs and JohnHare’s pro forma letter were noted.

17. Correspondence

(a) Email from Jorge Radovich The correspondence from Jorge Radovich dated 4September 2015 concerning the non-ratification ofthe Bunkers Convention and comments from therepresentative of Brazil at the IMO concerningTransboundary Pollution were noted. GiorgioBerlingieri commented on Italy’s ratification of theBunker Convention and Jorge Radovich onArgentine’s position in relation to the Nairobi WreckRemoval Convention and the Salvage Convention1989.

(b) The report of Rosalie Balkin on the IOPC FundsMeeting

The report of Rosalie Balkin on the IOPC FundsGoverning Bodies meeting held between 19 and 23October 2015 was noted with thanks.

18. Future CMI meetings

Resolution: The Executive Council will recommend holding the2017 Assembly in Genoa, subject to the Italian MLAconfirming that suitable arrangements can be made.

19. CMI business cards

Resolution: With one reservation it was agreed that the ExecutiveCouncillors be authorised to have business cardsprepared identifying their role as an Officer orExecutive Councillor of the CMI. It is suggested thatthey liaise with the Secretary-General as to the formatof such cards before arranging for them to be printed.John Hare proposed that cards be printed at theexpense of the CMI for the President, Secretary-General, Treasurer and Anne Verlinde, but that otherEXCO members should bear the costs of CMI cardsshould they wish to order same.

20. General business

There being no general business the meetingconcluded.

STUART HETHERINGTON JOHN HARE

President Secretary-General

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The CMI returns to New York for the first time in 50years. The last time a CMI Conference was held in thatcity was in 1965. The Conference will commence on the evening ofTuesday 3 May with an opening being addressed by thePresident of the CMI and the President of the hostMLA, the Maritime Law Association of the UnitedStates (MLAUS) and a guest keynote speaker, followedby a Broadway review by way of entertainment prior toa cocktail reception. There will be a function at theRockefeller Centre on the following evening,Wednesday 4 May and a Gala Dinner on Friday 6 Mayat the Hilton Hotel where about 1,200 delegates andtheir partners are expected to attend. The MLAUS celebrated its Centenary in 1999. It istherefore one of the oldest MLAs. The Conference willtake place during the same week that the MLAUS usuallyholds its Spring Meeting in New York. Accordingly therewill be a number of joint sessions organised byInternational Working Groups (IWGs) of the CMI andCommittees of the MLAUS during the two days ofbusiness meetings on 4 and 5 May. All those joint meetingswill be taking place in the Hilton Hotel (Midtown), whichis the Conference venue. Because of the large number oftopics which will be addressed at the meeting there willbe contemporaneous meetings taking place throughout

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the two days in at least two and probably three venueswithin the Hotel Conference facilities. On Thursday 5 May, after the business sessions, therewill be an opportunity for delegates to attend New YorkUniversity for the Nicholas Healy Memorial Lecture. Itis fitting that this lecture will take place during the jointCMI Conference and MLAUS Spring meeting asNicholas Healy, the former Senior Partner of the thenNew York shipping firm of Healy & Baillie, was thePresident of the MLAUS when it hosted the 1965 CMIConference in New York.The Conference and joint MLAUS meetings willconclude on Friday 6 May with the CMI Plenary andAssembly meetings and the MLAUS General Meeting.The principal topic at the 1965 Conference was therevision of the Maritime Liens and MortgagesConvention of 1926. In New York 2016 it will be theRevision of the York Antwerp Rules. Other sessions willhear a presentation by Captain Nick Sloane, the SalvageMaster of the “Costa Concordia” on the wreck removaloperation carried out on that vessel, as well as sessionsdealing with Cross-Border Insolvency, OffshoreActivities - Transboundary Oil Pollution, UnmannedShips, Cyber Crime, Polar Shipping, Ship FinanceSecurity Practices, Wrongful Arrest, and Arbitration. I look forward to seeing you in New York.

STUART HETHERINGTON

THE 42ND CMI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, NEW YORK FROM 3 TO 6 MAY 2016

WELCOME FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE CMI

CONFERENCE SUMMARY FROM THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE CMI

The Comité Maritime International is to hold its 42nd

International Conference in New York from 3rd to 6thMay 2016. The conference will be hosted by theMaritime Law Association of the United States and willbe held at the Midtown Hilton Hotel. This will be onlythe second international conference that the CMI hasheld on United States soil – the last was the 27thConference in 1965, presided over by Albert Lilar anddebating changes to the Convention on Maritime Liensand Mortgages. Since then there have been two furtherannual Assemblies in the USA: the 1987 Assembly wascombined with a Colloquium in New Orleans, and wemet again in New York in 1999 to coincide with thecentenary celebrations of the MLAUS.The main item on the 2016 conference agenda will bethe review of the York-Antwerp Rules relating togeneral average – of which the CMI is custodian – aprocess with which the CMI has been engaged with theparticipation of all industry stakeholders for someyears. This initiative, it is hoped, will address theanomalies which arose from the Sydney and Vancouveramendments to the York Antwerp Rules. The purposeof convening a full CMI convention is to put us in aposition to be able to adopt amendments to the currenttext of the York-Antwerp Rules. This can only be donein a full CMI Assembly, following debate and a plenary.

And it is a prerequisite that there be broad-basedindustry acceptance of any proposals that are to be putbefore the Assembly.The CMI will also be doing its usual business of its ownworking group and EXCO meetings, most of thembefore the start of the conference.But, in what will be a first for the CMI, running parallelwith the general average deliberations will be an excitingjoint programme of the respective committees of theMLAUS and the International Working Groups of theCMI. These open meetings will allow the CMI and theMLAUS to combine the knowledge of their members inwhat we are sure will be a stimulating debate on manycurrent topics. It is the first time that the CMI hasattempted such a close cooperation at committee levelwith any MLA, and we will surely learn much from eachother. It has been a treat working with the organisingcommittee of the MLAUS, and indeed having our CMIchairs plan their joint sessions with their MLAUScounterparts.You can access the full week’s provisional schedule by clickingon “Programme” on http://www.cmi2016newyork.org/We hope to see you in fabulous New York City in May2016.Sincerely,

JOHN HARE

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This report mentions only the highlights of the meeting,which was attended by Rosalie Balkin on behalf of theCMI. A full report of this meeting, including sourcereferences to relevant documents, can be found atDocument IOPC/OCT 15/11/ WP.1&1/1/.

Paragraph 2 contains the Director’s report, providingdetails of the Organization’s activities over the pastyear and setting out background on the key issues ofthe week’s agenda. The former included the landmarkdecision taken by the 1971 Fund Assembly at itsOctober 2014 session to dissolve the 1971 Fund as at31 December 2014. As of that date only the 1992 Fundand the 2003 Supplementary Fund regimes now exist. Among the main items for discussion were the:• funding of interim payments;• definition of a “ship”;• outstanding oil reports and contributions; • relocation of the Funds’ premises, and• Review of Observer Status.

Funding of interim payments (paragraph 4.7)

This has been an on-going issue since October 2009,involving discussions between the Funds’ Director andthe International Group of P&I Associations (theInternational Group) with a view to arriving at amutually acceptable solution—this aim to date stillillusive. The current MoU between the Funds and theInternational Group provides for cooperation onclaims-handling procedures and costs of joint expertsin respect of incidents involving an InternationalGroup Club and the 1992 Fund and SupplementaryFund. The objective is to expand the MoU to allowinterim payments to be made in the future. This willonly be possible if agreement can be reached on twolegally complex issues, namely, reconciling thejurisdiction clauses in the MoU with the immunitiesafforded the Funds by the Headquarters Agreementswith the UK Government; and agreement on theconcept of “established claim” within the MoU,especially whether a final judgment of a competentcourt in proceedings against the owner/ insurer wherethe Fund has been notified of them, in accordancewith article 7(6) of the1992 Fund Convention, couldbe regarded as an “established claim”.

Definition of a “ship” (paragraph 4/3)

This has also been a long-standing item on the Funds’agenda. At this meeting the 1992 AdministrativeCouncil decided to accept the recommendations of theWorking Group regarding an illustrative list of vessels

falling clearly within the definition of a “ship” underarticle I(1) of the 1992 Fund Convention, as well as anindicative list of vessels excluded from that list (seepara 4.3.23 for details). It was also agreed to adopt theconcept of the “maritime transport chain”, as aninterpretative tool, to address those situations on acase-by-case basis, where it was not clear whether thevessel fell within the definition of a “ship”. TheSecretariat was requested to produce a guidancedocument for consideration by the 1992 FundAssembly at the 2016 Spring session.

Outstanding oil reports and contributions (paragraphs5.1, 5.2 and 6.1)

The meeting considered the information regarding theproblems experienced by the Funds’ Secretariat inrelation to the submission of oil reports and collectionof contributions (Document IOPC/OCT 15/6/1).Report submission delays of one year were generallyattributable to changes in personnel within theresponsible authority, while longer delays were theresult of inadequate domestic legislation, difficulties inestablishing contact with competent authorities andpolitical situations such as unrest and civil war.Problems in the contributions system were largelyattributable to failures in domestic legislation and oilreporting systems. Even though these did not atpresent have a financial impact on the operations of theFunds (the level of outstanding contributions beingsome 0.47% of the total contributions levied),fulfillment by member States of their treaty obligationswas a matter of important principle. The Audit Body iscurrently reviewing this issue and is expected to submitproposals in Spring 2016.

Relocation of the Funds’ premises (paragraph 7.4)

An in-principle agreement has been reached betweenthe IOPC Funds, IMO and the UK Government torelocate the premises of the Funds’ to the IMOHeadquarters building. The move is expected to takeplace in June 2016.

Review of Observer Status (paragraph 8.2)

The Governing Bodies undertook their three-yearlyreview of the observer status of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (see DocumentIOPC/OCT 15/8/2). That of CMI was confirmedwithout debate.

ROSALIE BALKINCMI Observer Delegate to the IOPC Funds

NEWS FROM INTERGOVERNMENTAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

NEWS FROM IOPC FUND

REPORT OF THE 19-23 OCTOBER 2015 MEETING OF THE IOPC FUNDS GOVERNING BODIES

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