More questions than answers

摘要

Liability half-forgotten and much misunderstood it may be, but the HNS Convention is coming. A one-day conference held by Mare Forum last month brought various interests together to foster greater awareness but some questions remain and a lot of work is going to be needed to help spread the word. When an International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Diplomatic Conference adopted the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea - otherwise the HNS Convention - in May 1996 (HCB August 1996, page 12), they probably assumed that it would take some time for the new Convention to come into force. They may not have expected it to take quite so long; currently only four states have ratified the Convention: the Russian Federation, Angola, Morocco and Tonga. However, the European Union is pressing its member countries to ratify the Convention by 2006 and with positive noises from another group of states, including Japan, Canada, Norway, Singapore and South Korea, it looks increasingly likely that the HNS Convention will take effect some time around 2008.