Legal regulation governing arrest of a seagoing vessel

Abstract

The article analyzes international and national regulations governing the arrest of seagoing vessels. Thus, attention is drawn to the fact that some legislative acts of Ukraine have been amended in terms of determining the jurisdiction of cases of arrest of ships, important changes have been made to both the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine and the Commercial Procedural Code of Ukraine, which, in turn, impetus for the formation of a new array of case law in cases of arrest of ships.
 It analyzes International Convention for the unification of certain rules relating to Arrest of Sea-going Ships (1952), United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), United Nations Convention on the Carriage of Goods by Sea (1978) and International Convention on Arrest of Ships (1999), which unified almost all current trends related to the arrest of ships. The 1999 Convention was open for signature from 1 September 1999 to 31 August 2000, after which it remained open for accession. The national normative-legal acts regulating the issue of arrest of sea vessels have been examined. Thus, the national regulations governing the arrest of seagoing vessels include: Merchant Shipping Code of Ukraine, Commercial Procedural Code of Ukraine, Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, Law of Ukraine "On Enforcement Proceedings", Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses, Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
 The study concluded that, firstly, at the legal level today there are quite effective uniform rules for the arrest of a seagoing vessel to ensure maritime claims, which not only link different legal systems, but also make clear the various legal institutions. Secondly, the process of unification of this sphere is not static. Taking into account the long-term experience of application of the current legal norms, with change of circumstances of political, economic, legal character new rules which have to correspond to today's challenges are created. Third, Ukraine's accession to the international convention has certain advantages: it becomes a full participant in international shipping and acquires the same rights and obligations in the field of ship arrest as other member states.
 In our opinion, taking into account the experience of implementing the provisions of the 1999 Convention and the long-term practice of foreign states in the arrest of ships, in Ukraine it would be appropriate to develop and legislate a special procedure for arresting a sea vessel to ensure maritime claims.