CMI at the crossroads

THE Comite Maritime International (CMI) was established one hundred years ago when its declared aim was the unification of international maritime law. Membership of the CMI is composed of national maritime law associations (MLAs). Members of these associations include individuals from all sides of the shipping industry and some of the best maritime brains in the world. Their practical skills can be harnessed to provide a bird’s-eye view of the needs of the international shipping community.

The CMI is funded entirely by contributions from national MLAs and is independent of all governments. Its apolitical nature means that it acts only when a harmonising law is necessary or when invited by international organisations to contribute to one of their harmonising projects. Here lies the importance of the work of international organisations such as the CMI, which can work together for mutual benefit to unify maritime law.

The past

Improving safety as sea and establishing accident compensation schemes can only be effective if carried out on an international basis. Leaving individual countries to act unilaterally and without co-ordination with others is a recipe for chaos. National governments obviously need to take action to address particular problems that affect the territorial waters of their own nation. However, more often than not, an international as opposed to a national solution is needed to a particular problem. Historically, this has led to some of the CMI’s greatest achievements, such as The Collision and Salvage Conventions (1910), the Hague Rules (1924), conventions relating to Limitation of Liability (1924 and 1957), Arrest of Sea-Going Ships (1952) and the Carriage of Passengers by Sea (1961).

The CMI’s work method changed in 1969 when the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) - a UN agency - created its Legal Committee and made it responsible for all international maritime conventions. This decision was largely brought about by the need for an international response at government level to oil pollution at sea. The CMI was given observer status at IMO and has worked closely with the Legal Committee since its creation.

Although the CMI no longer has responsibility for the creation of conventions it has, over the last thirty years, produced the first drafts of many IMO conventions, for example the 1969 Civil Liability Convention. It has also developed many rules and guidelines where a full convention would not have been appropriate, such as the York Antwerp Rules (revised most recently in Sydney in 1994).

Whilst it can still propose conventions to the IMO, much of the work that used to be carried out in the field by the CMI is now done by the IMO Legal Committee and other intergovernmental bodies such as UNCITRAL and UNCTAD, which are backed by United Nations budgets. This has forced the CMI to change its role, but nonetheless all these bodies still solicit the assistance and advice of the CMI.

The present

The CMI had its first conference in Brussels on June 6, 1897. Today, 54 national maritime law associations are affiliated to it. In June of this year the CMI returned to its birthplace to celebrate its centenary in Antwerp. Delegates to the conference took time to celebrate the past but devoted must of their time to current projects, which include a proposed Wreck Removal Convention, a convention regulating the operators of offshore mobile craft, rules to govern the transfer and transportation of cargo using electronic means and a possible Third Party Liability Convention. A further effort was made to resolve the perennial conflict between the Hague/Visby and the Hamburg Rules.

The CMI has recently been criticised by its own members for losing its way. In particular, the bureaucratic methods of its executive council and the failure of its committees to produce final reports or draft conventions, as well as the unrepresentative nature of its membership, have been some of the main causes for concern. These issues were raised at the final plenary session during the centenary conference in June, which was a debate on the role of the CMI in the 21st century. To deal with the concerns expressed, the executive council will, this autumn, set up a committee, which will include members outside the executive, to plan the future of the CMI.

The future

A closer look at the CMI’s one-hundred-year history (summarised by Dr Frank Wiswall in a short booklet) could provide some clues as to its future role. A key to the CMI’s long-term survival may lie at the heart of its original policy, which stated:

"no maritime law should be promulgated that does not have input from shipowners, merchants, underwriters, average adjusters, bankers and other persons interested in the maritime trade."

After consultation with the maritime trade, it was then - and only then, the founders insisted - the duty of the lawyers to:

"discern what, among the diverse solutions, is the best."

In other words, the maritime trade should have an important say in determining the rules which will govern its activities.

One of the problems for the CMI is that its member associations have departed from its original intent to feel the pulse of the maritime industry at large. The membership is no longer representative of the industry it was set up to serve. It has, instead, become a talking shop for lawyers. And where two or more lawyers are gathered together, the danger is that no decisions are made.

Patrick Griggs, the CMI’s newly elected president, puts its history into context when he says: "The ideas of the lawyers should be secondary to those of the shipping industry. Only after consultation with industry should lawyers dare to suggest solutions to problems and devise international codes."

Patrick Griggs has written to the presidents of all the national MLAs affiliated to the CMI, urging them to review their membership and to make sure that it truly represents the maritime community at large - as stated in its original policy.

One of the challenges that lies ahead for the CMI, as an independent (herein lies one of its greatest strengths) and apolitical body, is to gain greater influence at IMO, UNCITRAL and UNCTAD. Griggs says, "We need to involve ourselves at a far earlier stage in the projects of the intergovernmental organisations such as the IMO Legal Committee. The CMI is the only organisation capable of offering balanced solutions. It is able to offer government bodies the benefit of an informed analysis of the national laws of each country it represents. The CMI is able to give the big picture rather than the narrow view. International shipping law should not be the work product of only a few active governments."

Griggs has also urged national members to get closer to those involved in the maritime affairs of their governments. Such relationships are an important potential source of new work for the CMI. If it could succeed in persuading and influencing at a far earlier stage, the CMI could once again become the yeast in the dough - through being proactive rather than simply reactive - and return to its place as a leader rather than a follower in world maritime affairs.

"I hope, during my four-year term of office, to meet the leaders of all the affiliated national associations," says Patrick Griggs. "I shall encourage them to believe in the importance of the CMI being involved in all projects to harmonise private international maritime law. No other organisation has the CMI’s depth of practical experience. We owe it to the shipping community at large to make that expertise available."

Time will tell whether or not Patrick Griggs has been passed a poisoned chalice. He has the skills and the breadth of experience necessary to lead the organisation forward into the millennium. Harnessing the brains and the talents of its membership to identify its future role and move ahead may prove his greatest challenge.