Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE US CARRIAGE OF GOODS BY SEA ACT: A RESPONSE TO ENGLISH CRITICISMS
Michael F. Sturley>*
George Bernard Shaw reputedly described England and the United States as “two countries divided by a common language”.1 In the same vein, comparative lawyers observe that England and the United States are “two countries divided by the common law”. It is undoubtedly tempting for a US lawyer to read English legal materials and assume that he or she understands them because the two nations share a common language and a common legal heritage. It must be similarly tempting for an English2 lawyer to read legal materials from the United States and make the same assumption. The comparativists’ quip contains considerable truth, however, and those who are not fully conversant with both legal systems take great risks when they venture into the less familiar terrain.
In a previous issue of this Quarterly, Regina Asariotis and Michael N. Tsimplis purported to analyse the proposed amendments to the US Carriage of Goods by Sea Act (COGSA) that are currently pending in Congress.3 This analysis has also been presented in other forums, including a Draft Report to the European Commission4 and a one-day course sponsored by the University of Southampton’s Institute of Maritime Law.5
* Stanley D. and Sandra J. Rosenberg Centennial Professor of Law, University of Texas at Austin. I served as the Reporter for the US Maritime Law Association’s Ad Hoc Liability Rules Study Group and Ad Hoc Review Committee, whose work is embodied in the proposal discussed here. The views expressed in this article, however, are my own, and have not been approved by other members of the Study Group, the Review Committee, or the US Maritime Law Association (USMLA).
The following abbreviations are used in this article:
Asariotis & Tsimplis: R. Asariotis and M. N. Tsimplis, “The Proposed US Carriage of Goods by Sea Act” [1999] LMCLQ 126.
Berlingieri & Hooper: F. Berlingieri and C. Hooper, “The US Bill to Revise the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act” [1988] Dir. Mar. 1427.
Reply: R. Asariotis and M.N. Tsimplis, “Proposed Amendments to the US Carriage of Goods by Sea Act: A Reply to Professor Sturley’s Response” [1999] LMCLQ 530.
Sturley, “Proposed Amendments”: M.F. Sturley, “Proposed Amendments to the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act” (1996) 18 Houston J. Intl L. 609.
Sturley, “Uniformity”: M.F. Sturley, “Uniformity in the Law Governing the Carriage of Goods by Sea” (1995) 26 J.M.L.C. 553.
1. See The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, rev. 4th edn (1996), 638.
2. The same observation could be made about lawyers from other common law countries, including even Canada.
3. Asariotis & Tsimplis, “The proposed US Carriage of Goods by Sea Act” [1999] LMCLQ 126.
4. See R. Asariotis et al., Intermodal Transportation and Carrier Liability, Draft Report to the European Commission (Contract Nr. E1-B97-B27040-S1N6954-SUB), App. E (“Analysis of US COGSA 1998 draft bill [19.3.1998] prepared by R. Asariotis”).
5. “The Hague-Visby Rules” (one-day course held at The City Conference Centre, Mark Lane, London, on 21 April 1999) (including a presentation by Regina Asariotis titled “The proposed US Carriage of Goods by Sea Act”).
519