New Challenges in Maritime Law: de Lege Lata et de Lege Ferenda

Maritime Law is characterized by a dual component of private law and public law since its origin and is permeated with strong tendency to internationality. In fact, the main juridical issues related to the matter very often go beyond national legislation and require uniform disciplines. Consequently, studying this complex and vast field of law allow scholars to carry out in-depth comparative analyses, taking into account both uniform international law and foreign law systems. The profiles of overlapping Maritime Law with other areas of law, such as, economic public law and commercial law, give an opportunity for researchers to deal with new issues as well as to broaden and enrich the content of their legal analyses. Furthermore, the Maritime Law field, due to its inner vocation, is subject to constant evolution and change. A few factors foster maritime sector innovation, such as: frequent resort to special legislation; the ever-increasing role of international conventions and European Union legislation; as well as the constant enhancement of maritime transport activities and infrastructures in line with operational reality needs. In this context, scholars are in charge of constantly verifying compliance of the legislative choices with international and EU discipline and their suitability to meet the interests of stakeholders, taking into consideration the hermeneutical activity of the Courts as well as the application of norms by the operators. This volume comprises a collection of a number of papers by which the Authors have contributed to identify some of the current most critical issues that affect the various sectors of the maritime transport market, and to provide potential and adequate solutions. The strength of this work lies in the Authors’ effort to encourage an intense debate on several crucial issues pertaining to navigation law, transport law and international commercial law. The Authors, coming from different European and Asian Countries, had opportunity to improve their own research and study experiences by focusing on legislative and factual similarities and divergences existing among their Countries. The purpose of this volume is the analysis of some of the principal issues of the various sectors of the matter, such as: insurance in the maritime transport of goods, the charter-parties, the bills of lading, the ship mortgage, carrier responsibility according to Rotterdam Rules, the liability of classification societies, the general average, the cabotage, port regulation, customs compliance, maritime arbitration, the question of standardizing maritime language and codes on board for safety reasons, and much more. The researchers, thanks to their articles included in this work, have contributed to the development of an up-to-date and practical document which orientates the reader to the main issues in this field. As a result of the influence of the traditional teaching, and through the personal experiences of the Authors, this work provides a new and expanded interpretation of some crucial profiles and foremost features of Maritime Law.