Robert Smith: “today I take notice of a recent positive development in the creation of a more modern legal regime for international…”

“today I take notice of a recent positive development in the creation of a more modern legal regime for international shipping. I was very pleased to see that America's importers and exporters and the ocean carriers that transport America's international trade reached agreement last month on the form and substance of international cargo liability reform. While this is a field with which most of us are at best only vaguely familiar, it has been the subject of intense debate in maritime circles for many years. In fact, draft reform legislation proposed by the Maritime Law Association of the United States was the subject of a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee in 1998. Similar draft legislation was also reviewed by the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine during the last Congress under the leadership of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Because of the inability of the commercial parties to agree on how or whether to proceed with such a proposal, however, the legislation was never introduced. Last month, the World Shipping Council, representing the ocean shipping companies serving America's foreign trades, and the National Industrial Transportation League, representing American importers and exporters, announced that they had reached agreement on cargo liability reform.”