The exemption of historic sailing ships from the Safety of Lives at Sea Convention SOLAS

Oct 1, 2009 - Feb 15, 2010

Project description

The Dutch fleet of historical sailing ships is a unique maritime monument, which can survive by allowing paying crew on board for adventurous trips of short duration. However, some EU member states have recently begun to unilaterally abandon the bilateral agreements made for the safety of the crews of these ships. Instead, these states started to apply safety standards on the basis of the SOLAS convention, standards which were originally developed for large scale passenger ships and which are impossible to meet for these historical sailing ships.
Asser shall assess if the SOLAS convention can and should be applied to historical sailing vessels. We intend to do this by carefully examining the historical context of the SOLAS convention, the minutes of the proceedings leading up to the drafting of the convention and by consulting secondary sources.
The project will be executed not only by desktop research but also by using our extensive professional network to gain access to Dutch and British archives, ministries and libraries. These include the Dutch and British National Archives, several Dutch and British ministries and the IMO library.

Drawing on our expertise of international law in general and the law of the sea in particular, we offer:

- A complete and legally exhausting overview of the scope of the SOLAS convention, including all possible grounds for exempting historical sailing ships
- A bespoke application of our legal findings on the current situation of the Dutch fleet
- A hierarchical separation of primary and subsidiary legal arguments
- A clear and easily accesible executive summary for a quick understanding of our most important findings

We will deliver a legal examination of the status of historical sailing ships vis à vis the SOLAS convention. To do so, we look at all of the five SOLAS conventions since 1913, as well as the ‘travaux préparatoires’. Furthermore, we place our findings in the wider European context.

Topic

Find conclusive legal proof that historic sailing ships are exempted from the SOLAS convention. Give an overview of the findings.

Objective

Finding full and conclusive legal evidence in the SOLAS convention and its travaux préparatoires for the exemption of historical sailing ships from the SOLAS regime;
- Delivering subsidiary legal grounds for this exemption;
- Setting out an overview of all relevant legal regimes which are applicable to the problem: i.e. all SOLAS conventions, EC law (i.e. directive 98/18/EC, regulation 3577/92/EC and general non-discrimination and proportionality principles of the EC) and bilateral agreements between the states involved.