Maritime law

Maritime law, also known as admiralty law, is the specialised body of rules governing navigation, shipping, maritime commerce and private disputes arising on the seas. While every nation develops its own maritime legislation, the inherently international nature of ocean-based activity has encouraged the growth of a substantial body of harmonised international law since the twentieth century. Admiralty law addresses private maritime relationships, whereas the law of the sea governs inter-state relations concerning territorial waters, navigational rights, maritime boundaries and resource exploitation.

Historical development

Maritime law is one of the oldest branches of legal practice, emerging from the necessity to regulate seaborne trade and navigation. Ancient Rhodes produced an early example, the Rhodian law, referenced in Roman legal writings. Roman and Byzantine developers further shaped maritime practice through codified principles, while medieval maritime customs flourished in Europe, including those of the Consulate of the Sea, the Hanseatic League, the Trani ordinances of Apulia and the Amalfian Laws.
In medieval Europe, Eleanor of Aquitaine played a prominent role in the dissemination of maritime legal norms. During and after her exposure to Mediterranean maritime customs on the Second Crusade, she helped establish the Rolls of Oléron on the island of Oléron and later introduced these principles into England. Norman England employed admiralty practice as an alternative to common law courts, initially requiring voluntary submission by litigants.
In England and Wales a discrete Admiralty Court eventually evolved. Although influenced by civil-law concepts derived from Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis, the court functioned as a sui generis common-law body. With the rapid expansion of British maritime commerce during the Industrial Revolution, admiralty jurisprudence expanded significantly. The Judicature Acts of 1873–1875 merged the original Admiralty Court into a broader judicial structure, but special admiralty jurisdiction remained. Modern admiralty matters in England and Wales are handled by the Admiralty Court of the King’s Bench Division, with jurisdiction codified in the Senior Courts Act 1981.
Admiralty jurisdiction played a crucial role in events preceding the American Revolution. Because Parliament assigned enforcement of the 1765 Stamp Act to admiralty courts—where trial by jury was unavailable—colonial resistance intensified. After the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1789, admiralty law became embedded in American federal jurisprudence. Influential early American lawyers, including Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, practised extensively in admiralty matters. The debate over jury trials in maritime cases contributed to the framing of the Bill of Rights.

Scope and principal features

Admiralty law regulates a broad range of maritime matters. These include:

• marine commerce and navigation
• carriage of passengers and cargo
• marine insurance
• collisions, salvage and towing
• ship arrest, liens and limitation of liability
• seafarers’ employment rights
• marine pollution and damage to the marine environment

Practitioners sometimes distinguish between “wet law”—involving navigation, salvage, collisions and ship arrest—and “dry law”, which covers commercial matters such as insurance and contracts of carriage.
Admiralty law differs from the law of the sea, which is a component of public international law. The latter governs relationships between states, including territorial claims, exclusive economic zones, navigational freedoms and seabed resource rights. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), adopted by most states and administered through mechanisms such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, forms the principal modern framework of ocean governance.

Maintenance and cure

One of the oldest doctrines in maritime employment law is the duty of maintenance and cure, traceable to Article VI of the Rolls of Oléron. Maintenance requires a shipowner to provide subsistence to a seaman injured in service until recovery to the point where the seaman can resume work. Cure obliges the shipowner to furnish all necessary medical treatment, including medicines and devices enabling functional recovery, even if they do not improve the underlying condition. These obligations may extend to long-term care.
If a seaman must litigate to obtain these benefits, American law permits recovery of attorney’s fees. Willful refusal by a shipowner to provide maintenance and cure may result in punitive damages. The distinction between maintenance, which ceases once the seaman can support himself, and cure, which may continue, is central to maritime employment law.

Personal injuries to passengers

Shipowners owe a duty of reasonable care to passengers, comparable to land-based negligence standards. Injured passengers bear the burden of proving breach of duty. Although general personal-injury limitation periods apply, many cruise lines impose contractual restrictions requiring suits to be filed within one year, and sometimes mandating specific venues such as Miami or Seattle. English jurisprudence, historically shaped by cases such as Adler v Dickson, developed rules concerning exclusion clauses and the extension of contractual protections to employees and agents through so-called Himalaya clauses.

Maritime liens, mortgages and ship arrest

Maritime liens secure payment of claims relating to the ship itself, such as seamen’s wages, necessaries supplied to the vessel, port charges and the repayment of ship mortgages. A maritime lien attaches to the vessel, permitting claimants to enforce rights through ship arrest. In the United States such actions must be brought in federal admiralty courts, although state courts may apply federal admiralty principles under the reverse Erie doctrine.

Salvage and treasure salvage

Salvage law governs compensation for voluntary rescue of property at sea. Maritime tradition obliges mariners to save lives without reward, but the recovery of property may entitle the rescuer to compensation. Salvage may be contractual—agreed in advance through instruments such as Lloyd’s Open Form—or purely voluntary, in which case the law implies a relationship based on the value of the property saved and the degree of risk undertaken. Distinct from routine salvage, treasure salvage involves the recovery of historically significant or long-lost underwater artefacts, often raising additional issues concerning ownership, cultural heritage and sovereign immunity.