The assessment of the status of seaman: many tests, but few certainties and poor decision-making uniformity

The debate about the extension of the semantic field of the status of seaman has for many years been particularly heated in US case law and has sometimes led to diametrically opposed decisions, albeit in relation to cases that were often substantially similar to each other. The paper, in the light of a careful examination of the broad case law and doctrine on the subject, explores the impact that the definition of the boundaries of the notion of vessel can have on that of seaman and, in a critical perspective, proposes some solutions to the challenging and long-standing, but still terribly current, debate on the matter.