Waiting for the ship that arrives just in time and the due dispatch obligation

CLIMA Lunch Seminar with Viktor Weber.

Abstract

Most cargo ships arrive to port too early only to find themselves waiting in a queue. Considering enormous energy need of cargo ships and the connected greenhouse gas emissions, and the fact that even a small decrease in speed offers significant emission reduction, this practice is highly wasteful. The solution to this problem is to communicate with the port and to slow down to a speed that allows the ship to arrive exactly when the port is ready to receive it. However, this seemingly simple solution is a set of technical, operational, and legal challenges. After giving a general background, the present seminar focuses on a particular aspect of the legal challenges, that of the due dispatch clause in charterparties. How can the ship slow down en route when the terms of its hire oblige it to proceed as fast as possible?

About the speaker

Viktor is a Postdoctoral Fellow at CLIMA where he conducts research in the DART project (Citizen Engagement in the Energy Transition). Earlier, he was employed in the InterAct project in which he researched the role of actors in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of the shipping industry. Beforehand, he has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo where he researched the legal aspects of carbon capture and storage in the NCCS project. He also worked as a Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore and the University of Southampton (UK). Viktor holds his degrees (LLB, LLM, PhD) from the University of Southampton. His main research areas are public and private Maritime Law, Environmental Law, and Energy Law.

Register for the seminar. Zoom link is provided upon registration.