The issue of unmanned vessels will be at the centre of the future of shipping and provide an important challenge to all parts of the shipping community. It is therefore of paramount importance to ensure that the existing international regulatory framework is reviewed, understood in its actual and potential application to unmanned vessels and, as necessary, updated to accommodate this new technology and to allow it to operate safely.

As many of you will know, Francesco Berlingieri was a renowned lawyer and jurist, head of the leading Italian law firm which still carries his family name and, of course, the President of the Comité Maritime International for some 25 years from 1976 to 1991. I was still a novice in 1976. That was the year when I started as a young barrister. I soon learned that Francesco Berlingieri was one of the great shipping lawyers of his time—like a God in the firmament. He was a great sailor and prolific author. He had an immense knowledge of shipping law with a broad vision which transcended national boundaries and a passion for the unification of maritime law in all its aspects—which is, of course, the principal object of the CMI.

What I did not know until recently was that in 1977 he was elected a Member of the Commercial Court Users’ Committee here in London; in the same year, 1977, he was elected an Honorary Member of the United States Maritime Law Association; in 1981 an Honorary Member of the Canadian Bar Association; and in 1984 an Honorary Proctor in Admiralty by the Maritime Law Association of the United States. In 1993 he was presented with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) upon the proposal of the Master of the Rolls, Lord Donaldson, in recognition of his valuable service to British maritime interests. These honours bestowed on Francesco Berlingieri illustrate the very high regard in which he was held around the world.

If I might add—he was also a great listener and someone who was willing to change his mind. I know this because if you look at one of his many books, International Maritime Conventions,1 you will see that he says that he had changed his mind on the topic of wrongful arrest of ships as a result of reading an article I had written.2 That is a topic which is currently being considered by a working group of the CMI.