WE celebrated our second birthday at the USMLA Fall meeting

WE celebrated our second birthday at the USMLA Fall meeting in Orlando last month. Since the launch of the magazine two years ago, we have kept to our aim of trying to make maritime law more accessible to our readers. Many of you tell us what an easy and enjoyable read it is. With so much competition in terms of physical reading matter that passes across our desks every day, this is indeed a compliment. Thank you for your support, your subscriptions, and your continued interest.

Since all of us will be prone to historical tooth-sucking as the century draws to a close, we thought it would be appropriate to focus in this issue on a strip of water which has played a significant role in twentieth century maritime history and which is contemplating the end of one era and the dawn of another.

At noon on December 31, the United States will hand over control of the Panama Canal to the Panama Canal Authority (PCA). Historically, the canal has played a key role as a strategic military position. The challenge now facing it is to become a profit-making business.

The canal has been described as 'the most pure form of socialism', a legacy left by the Canal Zone Government which operated, in effect, as an independent entity within the Republic of Panama from 1904 to 1979. Reggie Hayden, founder of Hayden & Milliken in Miami, gives us a retrospective overview of the canal. And, in the next issue - our first of the new millennium - Juan David Morgan Jnr, of Morgan & Morgan, Panama, will explain how the canal will operate at the beginning of the new millennium under the auspices of the PCA.

Piraeus is another centre of maritime significance, and a quarter of the world's tonnage is still owned by the Greek market. Someone who has known the great and the good, the legendary giants of Greek shipping this century, is Vassilis Sarantitis. Senior partner and founder of one of the best- known maritime law firms in Greece, Vassilis has enjoyed a dual career in politics and the law. But he has now returned to his first love, maritime law, and shares with us his views of the Greek shipping scene.

Elsewhere in this issue, Chris Fisher of Bunker Claims International argues for mediation before or instead of arbitration in the settlement of bunker disputes. Lawyer Richard Desgagnes examines the various judicial remedies available in Canada to parties to international arbitration agreements. For the first time, we publish articles from Ireland, and we also have stories from South Africa, Spain, India and the US Gulf Coast.

We hope you will enjoy this issue, and will contribute your views well into the next century. Until the next millennium, best wishes from us all here at The Maritime Advocate.