Announcement of the Winners of the LSLC’s Prize Essay Competition by Sir Nigel Teare, Chairman of the panel of judges. This announcement was made at the LSLC’s 30th Anniversary Gala Dinner and The Lord Mustill Debate held at the Savoy on Thursday 19th June.
“It is with great pleasure that I announce the Winners of the Essay Competition.
The topics on which essays were sought included Autonomous Shipping, Green Shipping and Bulk Carrier Casualties.
28 essays were received from the UK, New Zealand and Singapore, from India and Indonesia and from Spain, Greece , Brazil and Albania.
They were of a high standard and all entrants to the competition are to be congratulated.
There was a judging panel of 7 including myself. I am very grateful to the judging panel for its careful marking of the essays which resulted in a short list of 8 essays.
Judging the eventual winners, though difficult, was a pleasure. Speaking for myself I learnt a considerable amount from reading the essays on the short list.
I shall announce winners in reverse order.
In 4th. place is Aditya Sushant Jain from India. His essay is entitled An Autonomy Innovation Liability Optimisation Model for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships. This was a truly novel and innovative approach to the liability of software developers and remote operators unable to benefit from the limitation of liability available to shipowners. It proposed a mathematical formula for assessing liability based upon the total social cost of their work, taking into account risk deterrence, innovation incentives and insurance feasibility. When legislators have to address this subject they would be well advised to consider the philosophical basis of this novel approach to liability and, perhaps, to seek assistance in understanding the mathematical formulae which it is suggested can give effect to it.
In 3rd. place is Geoffrey Duckworth from the UK. His essay is entitled Greener shipping- is the shipping industry succeeding in achieving its goals and what more can be done? This essay examined the 2023 goals set by IMO to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping.. The incentives to shipowners to reduce emissions by 2030 are discussed and analysed and the alternative fuels which would be required to meet net zero by 2050 are comprehensively described. The author is to be congratulated on his critical assessment of IMO’s targets. I understand that Geoffrey Duckworth is here tonight. So could he please come up to collect his prize.
In 2nd place is Iris Ng from Singapore. Her essay is entitled Safer, greener and leaner ? The impact of autonomous shipping on the shipping industry. This essay assesses the likely place of autonomous shipping in the industry in the near future and suggests, with some force , that it will be rather a modest place. The essay then examines whether autonomous shipping should be subject to fault based or strict liability and suggests the former. The essay is an impressive and critical addition to the existing literature on the subject.
And finally I come to the Winner. The winning essay is very much up to date and addresses the approval by IMO in April 2025 of the legally binding framework for reducing green house gas emissions from shipping to be adopted under MARPOL. It examines in particular the two-tiered emission pricing mechanism and its contractual implications for time charters in English law. The author concludes that there will be a need to reflect in time charters the financial and regulatory consequences of operational decisions regarding speed, routing and fuel and how the risk of such consequences should be allocated between owner and charterer. The essay gives a most interesting insight into the legal issues which we can all expect to meet either in arbitration or in court in the coming years. The winner is Lucia Diaz Cameselle who is a student at the Spanish Maritime Institute. I congratulate her and ask her to come and collect her prize.”
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LSLC announces its 2024 Prize Essay Competition
At the Centre’s recent seminar on RTI v MUR and Force Majeure Clauses held at Linklaters, Lord Justice Males, the Chairman of that event, was pleased to announce that LSLC’s Chairman, Dr Aleka Sheppard, has re-launched its Prize Essay Competition which, previously, had been initiated by the Centre in 2002 jointly with CTC.
The subjects offered for this year’s competition are:
(1) Autonomous shipping – how this will impact the shipping industry, including safety considerations and whether the Collision Regs 1972 will have a continuing role as ships become increasingly more automated.
(2) Bulk carrier casualties from the 1980s to the present day and can anything further be done to improve the safety record
(3) Greener shipping – is the shipping industry succeeding in achieving its goals and what more can be done?
(4) Is STCW Convention still fit for purpose? What could be done to improve it?
(5) How to tackle fair pay for seafarers?
For further details with regard to prizes on offer, Rules for submission and important dates to remember please click here
Excerpt from the Reflections of Lord Thomas stated at the 25th Anniversary Celebration Dinner
“….But what of the future? Things are going to change, …..what I think is now apparent is things will change much more rapidly: the first is the effect of digitalisation. There is no doubt that it is having a dramatic effect on the way disputes are resolved, I think that we will, probably, within the very near future, go away from the paper file to arbitrations and to court, to ensure that we do everything within the electronic file. Secondly, I think the era of video evidence is coming – having spent a lot of the past year dealing with evidence over a video link, I see nothing wrong with it and we’re going to go to distance hearings, but we’ve got to be very careful with what we do, because we must not dehumanise the law. One of the great benefits of being here tonight – and it’s been wonderful to see everyone getting up and chatting – is that this is a community and, as we move forward to court procedures that will be more remote, we must keep the community – and the Centre is a community”.
