One of the world’s leading maritime law experts will investigate how the ratification of the Rotterdam Rules 2009 could affect Australia’s import and export trade.
TC Beirne School of Law Professor of Maritime and Commercial Law Nick Gaskell will present the Richard Cooper Memorial Lecture - The Rotterdam Rules 2009: Issues for Australia? – at Court Room 1, Level 7, Commonwealth Law Courts, 119 North Quay Brisbane at 5.30pm on Wednesday October 28.
The lecture will be video-conferenced to the Commonwealth Law Courts in Sydney and Melbourne at 6.30pm (DST).
The annual public lecture honours the late Justice Richard Cooper.
Professor Gaskell said the Rotterdam Rules represented a major attempt to achieve international uniformity in the contracts under which the vast bulk of the world’s trade is carried by sea.
“The Rotterdam Rules will have wide reaching implications for the terms of Australia’s import and export trade, the vast majority of which is carried by sea," he said.
“It is unclear how far the new rules, if ratified by Australia, will affect the total cost of imported and exported goods (including insurance), with overall flow-on effects to the Australian economy.”
Professor Gaskell said Australia’s current sea carrying rules, which dated back to 1924, gave shipping lines a great number of defences and restricted their overall liabilities
“While the Rotterdam Rules are clearer, more up-to-date and better balanced between carrier and cargo owner, they will also increase the liability of carriers of cargo in and out of Australia," he said.
“As the new rules are much longer and more complex, because, for example, they deal with e-commerce, they could give rise to increased litigation costs and may also have an impact on cargo insurance.
"If the new rules are ratified by Australia and other countries the costs of carriers will rise as their liability for lost or damaged cargo will substantially increase.”
Professor Gaskell said the UN General Assembly adopted the “United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea” in December 2008.
“The Convention opened for signature in September this year in a ceremony in Rotterdam and the Convention will be known as the Rotterdam Rules 2009.
"All the world’s major trading nations were involved in the negotiations, but it remains to be seen whether key players such as the US and China will ratify. These two countries are major trading partners of Australia, and our ratification of the Convention might well be heavily influenced by their decisions.”
For further details of the Annual Richard Cooper Memorial Lecture visit www.law.uq.edu.au/richard-cooper-memorial-lecture-series.
RSVP is essential, please email t.vasiljevic@law.uq.edu.au by Wednesday October 21.
Media:
Professor Nick Gaskell, (07) 3365 2490, n.gaskell@law.uq.edu.au
Lynda Flower, School of Law Marketing, (07) 3365 2523, l.flower@law.uq.edu.au
