Introduction to A Research Agenda for Maritime Law

Since its birth, Maritime Law has been a mirror of global changes and transformations in trade and society. Born out of the need to regulate navigation along ancient commercial routes, this fascinating branch of law emerged as the first truly international legal system grounded in shared customs and practices among seafarers and merchants from different nations and cultures. Throughout history, Maritime Law has continuously adapted to geopolitical, social, and technological (r)evolutions: from the era of sail to that of steel, from the age of colonial empires to the rise of containerisation, until nowadays it is facing a disruptive change also due to the wave of digitalisation, which is redefining the notion of global connectivity. As a living laboratory of this area of law, international maritime transport clearly operates as a primary driver of regulatory change in this field, generating the very challenges to which legal frameworks are called to respond. From this perspective, the shipping field sits nowadays at the intersection of three main forces: the pressures of global trade, the potential of technological innovation and the related emergence of new categories of risks, and the push towards environmental sustainability driven by the global climate emergency. Individually and in combination, these three forces are placing Maritime Law and regulatory activity before new challenges that test their ability to preserve coherence and unity in an increasingly fast-moving and interconnected world. As it can be observed, law itself is, therefore, evolving towards more flexible modes of regulation: soft law instruments and standardised models are gaining prominence also due to their capability guaranteeing the agility required to address rapid change, while the global pursuit of sustainability calls for increased coordination between international institutions, regional organisations, and industry stakeholders. Against the backdrop of these two apparently competing tendencies, towards regulatory flexibility on the one hand and towards greater institutional coordination on the other, it becomes crucial to reflect on the regulatory approach most capable of responding to these evolving demands while preserving the coherence and distinctive identity of Maritime Law. In this dynamic context, A Research Agenda for Maritime Law aims to discover new directions and inquiries by seeking to identify the conceptual and regulatory questions that will define the discipline in the decades ahead. With this regard, thanks to the contributions offered by the international scientific community, it seems already possible to outline some future paths that will characterise the research agenda on Maritime Law in the next years. Building upon a deeper insight into the achievements to date in the unification of international Maritime Law, future research will be called to rethink liability and insurance models in response to automation and digitalisation and to test the capacity of existing legal categories to accommodate emerging maritime realities. To this end, through an interdisciplinary approach, the contributions collected in this volume reflect the diversity of the current maritime scenario and highligh.