IBA 2000

THE International Bar Association is about much more than shipping. Indeed, maritime makes up just a small part of the IBA's diverse workload, which covers everything from habeus corpus to the Hague Rules.

You can find out most of what you would want to know about the IBA by looking at the www.ibanet.org website. What you should also know is that the IBA runs just about the slickest, best-attended and most pertinent conference in the legal calendar.

The IBA 2000 Conference was held in Amsterdam in September. It was right out of the top drawer. The directory of attendees was thicker than the collected speakers' papers from most conferences. The organisation was superb, the atmosphere businesslike with just the right amount of cut-glass socialising, and the venue inspired. When a man is tired of Amsterdam, I don't even want to be seen in his company.

Maritime lawyers who couldn't spare the time for a whole week in Amsterdam could have got most of what they wanted in the space of two days. Salvage and the Arrest of Ships were the two topics under discussion. Speakers were drawn from the usual suspects, and lived up to expectations.

Marine salvage will continue to excite comment until shipping and environmental interests start singing from the same hymn sheet. Not in our lifetime. And ship arrest will do the same, for as long as there are birds in the sky. One speaker said the 1999 ship arrest convention lacked sex appeal. Clearly, he should get out more, but nobody should underestimate the amount of money that enterprising lawyers can make today from ship arrest.

Nobody accused the IBA conference - or Amsterdam - of lacking sex appeal. On the contrary. Event organisers everywhere could learn something from the IBA.

Bareboat charters

AS a founding partner of Curtis Davis Garrard , with fifteen years' experience specialising in the subject, Mark Davis is well-qualified to write Bareboat Charters, the latest addition to the Lloyd's Shipping Law Library. The first English law book to tackle this subject, it explains the nature and formation of a bareboat charter as well as examining and commenting on each of the clauses in the industry-standard form BIMCO Barecom 89.

An essential read for maritime lawyers, barristers, P&I clubs, charterers, shipowners, shipmanagers and students alike, this book also provides invaluable guidance on the admiralty and arrest jurisdiction of the English courts in relation to bareboat charters. Contents also include finance charters and leases, in rem claims and admiralty jurisdiction, pollution and frustration.

Bareboat Charters is available from the Lloyd's Shipping Law Library priced £130/$221. To order contact the customer services team,
Informa Publishing Group Ltd, UK.

Tel. +44 (0)20 7553 1000
Fax. +44 (0)20 7553 1106
E-mail: enqu...@informa.com