Representatives attending the 13th Interim meeting of the Asian Shipowners Forum (ASF) Ship Insurance and Liability Committee in Hong Kong say they will likely make amendments to the final draft of the new UNCITRAL Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea that was agreed in January this year.
The committee said it will discuss the convention at the upcoming 41st session of UNCITRAL in June and July. The interim meeting held earlier this month attracted the secretary-general of the ASF and delegates representing shipowner associations from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and the Federation of Asean Shipowner Associations (FASA), as represented by shipowner associations from Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.
The committee said in a statement that it has concerns with the levels of liability in Article 61, which exceeded those in the Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules. "The liability limits seemed to have been agreed for reasons other than those justified by the review of historical claims records, and were likely to create a barrier to ratification of the convention by some countries, particularly those in Asia."
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