When Was the Last Time You Were
Restrained by a Prince? Conservatism
and the Development of Maritime Law
Martin Davies
Abstract This chapter examines how some concepts and contractual terms used by
maritime law tend to lag far behind what is actually going on in maritime practice.
The stubborn persistence of the 1946 version of the New York Produce Exchange
time charter form, provides just one example among many. Sometimes—often—
international instruments of maritime law have been created with wholly admirable
precision to meet modern commercial needs, but have moved far ahead of maritime
practice, proving incapable of moving national laws or commercial usage along with
them. Sometimes, familiar and widely-used legal terms continue to deal with issues
that have long ceased to be of relevance in maritime practice. In short, the idea that
maritime law moves smoothly in lockstep with the needs of maritime commerce is
an illusion. Very often, maritime law either moves on its own, or it does not move at
all. The examples in this chapter are widely disparate in character, but they have one
thing in common: they are examples of maritime law at distant odds from maritime
practice.
1 Introduction
Maritime lawyers have a habit of remarking on how closely maritime law reflects the
commercial needs of the shipping industry. For example, in The Junior K,
1 Steyn
J. of the High Court of England and Wales (later Lord Steyn of the House of Lords)
declined to hold that a charterparty fixture recap “subject to details” could possibly
constitute a concluded contract, because to do so would be “out of step with the way
M. Davies (*)
Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA
e-mail: mdavies@tulane.edu
1 Star Steamship Society v. Beogradska Plovidba (The Junior K) [1988] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 583.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
P. K. Mukherjee et al. (eds.), Maritime Law in Motion, WMU Studies in Maritime
Affairs 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31749-2_9
153
Restrained by a Prince? Conservatism
and the Development of Maritime Law
Martin Davies
Abstract This chapter examines how some concepts and contractual terms used by
maritime law tend to lag far behind what is actually going on in maritime practice.
The stubborn persistence of the 1946 version of the New York Produce Exchange
time charter form, provides just one example among many. Sometimes—often—
international instruments of maritime law have been created with wholly admirable
precision to meet modern commercial needs, but have moved far ahead of maritime
practice, proving incapable of moving national laws or commercial usage along with
them. Sometimes, familiar and widely-used legal terms continue to deal with issues
that have long ceased to be of relevance in maritime practice. In short, the idea that
maritime law moves smoothly in lockstep with the needs of maritime commerce is
an illusion. Very often, maritime law either moves on its own, or it does not move at
all. The examples in this chapter are widely disparate in character, but they have one
thing in common: they are examples of maritime law at distant odds from maritime
practice.
1 Introduction
Maritime lawyers have a habit of remarking on how closely maritime law reflects the
commercial needs of the shipping industry. For example, in The Junior K,
1 Steyn
J. of the High Court of England and Wales (later Lord Steyn of the House of Lords)
declined to hold that a charterparty fixture recap “subject to details” could possibly
constitute a concluded contract, because to do so would be “out of step with the way
M. Davies (*)
Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA
e-mail: mdavies@tulane.edu
1 Star Steamship Society v. Beogradska Plovidba (The Junior K) [1988] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 583.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
P. K. Mukherjee et al. (eds.), Maritime Law in Motion, WMU Studies in Maritime
Affairs 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31749-2_9
153