Originally presented as author's thesis (LL.M.), University of Natal/Durban, 1989.

The Admiralty Jurisdiction Regulation Act 105 of 1983 was a radical and far-reaching, as well as overdue, modernisation of South African admiralty law. Described as 'bold, innovative and comprehensive', it introduced - for the first time anywhere in the world - the provisions enabling an action to be pursued by way of the arrest of an associated ship rather than the ship in respect of which the claim lay. This work, by one of South Africa's pre-eminent shipping lawyers, analyses the nature of this novel action. That involves a review of how the jurisdiction came about; its nature and impact; the problems to which it gives rise and the making of some modest suggestions concerning the road ahead.

The general international law regarding foreign merchant ships in internal waters has never been codified. The question of the breadth of the territorial sea was finally solved during the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. But conflicts between coastal States and foreign merchant ships in internal waters and the territorial sea may arise. This comprehensive study analyses these issues and strives for reasonable and generally acceptable solutions.

This book provides an analysis and comparison of international insolvency rules, maritime laws and their inevitable intersection in maritime cross-border insolvencies. Until today, the on-going shipping crisis resulted in the insolvency of numerous shipping companies all over the world. The tensions arising between the legal systems of maritime and insolvency law, paired with conflicts of law in maritime insolvencies, are a major source of legal uncertainty and risk. In 2010, the Comité Maritime International installed an international working group on international maritime insolvencies and until today it is work in progress. This book gives an overview on maritime insolvencies, with a focus on Germany, England & Wales and the USA, and assesses the chances of achieving meaningful harmonization in the complex scenarios, where ships as mobile assets add a further complication to international insolvency proceedings.

This fourth edition addresses certain developments, including the 1996 Protocol to the 1976 Limitation Convention, which have come into effect since publication of the previous edition. The chapters on limitation of liability for passenger claims and in relation to the carriage of goods have been updated, as has the chapter on limitation regimes worldwide. The book also focuses upon the practicalities of seeking to limit by reference to case law and procedural rules.