The Arrest of Ships in Private International Law

By providing a private international law analysis of a field in which international conventions coexist with national law and regional law, this book offers different theoretical and methodological insights into the conflict of laws and the conflict of jurisdictions, aiming ultimately at the juridical continuity of legal relations across national borders.

Central to the book is the jurisdictional function of arrest of ships. Forum arresti--the paradigmatic forum selection criterion in English and Scots law--has survived so far as a specific jurisdictional basis for maritime claims in the process of Europeanization of private international law. One of the main purposes of this book is to provide a theoretical framework within which forum arresti in the case of the arrest of ships gains legitimacy. It proposes a positive approach to jurisdictional issues through the lenses of international judicial co-operation and provides a theoretical justification for the triumph of forum arresti in the international maritime context where traditionally this has been justified by historical and practical reasons.

Considering the the topic in the context of the Europeanization of private international law and the Brussels I Regulation, this book includes valuable insight into theories of characterisation as applied to uniform provisions such as the International Arrest Conventions, and challenges the indistinctive characterisation of the arrest of ships as an inherent part of the action in rem in English law.

This is a scholarly analysis offering an expert perspective on the arrest of ships in the international commercial sphere to draw conclusions on the advancement of further harmonisation in this field. Through its focus on English and Scots law in the light of international conventions, this book provides a framework which will give practical answers to the many complex private international law issues that arise in relation to the arrest of ships.

Veronica Ruiz Abou-Nigm is Lecturer in Law at the School of Law of the University of Sheffield. Her teaching and research interests lie in international commercial dispute resolution (including litigation, arbitration and mediation) particularly in connection with shipping disputes as well as maritime law, commercial conflict of laws and comparative law.

In 2003 she graduated with an LL.M. in Commercial Law (Distinction) at the School of Law of the University of Edinburgh and in 2008 she was granted a Ph.D. at the same institution.

She was formerly an Associate Professor of Private International Law at the Catholic University in Uruguay and a shipping practitioner in Uruguay between 1997 and 2002.