Editors --- "In Brief" [2009] AUJlMOA 5; (2009) 1(1) Australian Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs 32

• IN BRIEF
• The biggest marine documentary
• United Nations adopts the ‘Rotterdam Rules’
• African piracy on IMO agenda

IN BRIEF^[1]

prepared by Mikhail Kashubsky

The biggest marine documentary

Headed by renowned French film director and actor Jacques Perrin, Galatée Film Productions, a French-based production house specialising in big screen nature documentaries, is completing a new film about the world’s oceans.

Oceans is claimed to be the biggest-budget cinema documentary ever produced. It has a budget of about $US60 million. The feature is being developed by Galatée Films in partnership with Disneynature. The producers have stated that:

Oceans explores the unrecognised, hidden face of the Earth. Oceans also makes it alarmingly clear that the marine world, despite its fascinating wealth and complexity, is fragile. It is living on borrowed time, threatened by human actions: overfishing, pollution, coastal destruction, climatic changes.

Five years in production, one year behind schedule, a screenplay in constant development, cutting-edge technological inventions made at the last minute, Galatée cameramen dispersed across all the seas of the world, several hundred biologists on hand, the European Space Agency and the scientists of the international project the Census of Marine Life working overtime, the film is at last scheduled for release later this year.

The Galatée team has received the support of the Sloan Foundation and has been working closely with the Census of Marine Life (Census) scientists to ensure the scientific accuracy of the film. The production benefits from the precious information of an entire network of experts spread out over the planet.

In fact, the cooperation between Galatée Films and the Census benefits both parties. The Census assisted with arranging authorisations to film in certain territorial waters where marine mammals are protected by extremely strict legislation. In exchange, the scientists gain from the producers’ sophisticated technology and logistics whereby they are finally able to go up close to animals they have previously only observed from a distance.

The footage and images sometimes give scientists information that was previously beyond their reach. For example, one of the technological advances employed in the production (which could benefit scientists) is an underwater microscope manipulated by a robotic arm with the sole aim of filming larvae as they have never before been filmed.

Last year, Australian and French movie-makers were filming super macro segments for the movie in ReefHQ, the world’s biggest living coral reef aquarium, in north Queensland.

Oceans filming near Townsville, Australia.

Source: ABC News, <http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/29/ 2229856.htm> at 25 September 2008.

With less than two hundred days before the end of filming, the producers hope to achieve an ambitious task of filming the birth of a humpback whale in Polynesia, a spectacle that no human eye has ever witnessed before.

Being such a major, technologically advanced production, Oceans will supposedly reveal new mysteries of the world ocean.

Source: Census of Marine Life, Galatee Films Oceans Project <http://www.coml.org/census-arts/film-oceans> at 9 March 2009; Dominique de Saint Pern, Oceans: The Odyssey of a Film Shoot, Le Monde (15 August 2008); see also Galatée Films, The Oceans Project Press Kit (2005).

United Nations adopts the ‘Rotterdam Rules’

On 11 December 2008, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted, at its 63^rd session, a new global cargo liability convention.

The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea aims to create a modern and uniform law concerning the international carriage of goods which include an international sea leg, but which is not limited to port-to-port carriage. The convention replaces the Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules, and it has become known as the ‘Rotterdam Rules’.

The draft convention was prepared over thirteen sessions from April 2002 to January 2008, and was submitted for the approval of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Extensive negotiation by the Member States and observers of UNCITRAL has resulted in overwhelming support for a significant increase to the limits on carrier liability for cargo loss or damage that apply in most countries.

The final draft text was approved by UNCITRAL on 3 July 2008 and subsequently presented to the UN General Assembly for conclusion. After considering the final draft, the General Assembly, among other things, declared that it is:

Convinced that the adoption of uniform rules to modernize and harmonize the rules that govern the international carriage of goods involving a sea leg would enhance legal certainty, improve efficiency and commercial predictability in the international carriage of goods and reduce legal obstacles to the flow of international trade among all States.

The Rotterdam Rules comprise 96 articles arranged in 18 Chapters. By contrast, Hague-Visby Rules contain only 10 articles and Hamburg Rules have 34 articles. The Rotterdam Rules will be open for signature by all States at Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on 23 September 2009.

Source: Resolution on Adoption of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea, General Assembly Resolution 63/122 (2009); The Rotterdam Rules, adopted on 11 December 2008, (not in force); UNCITRAL Press Release (7 July 2008).

African piracy on IMO agenda

Following the adoption of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions 1846 and 1851, on 2 and 16 December 2008 respectively, which extended UNSC’s authorisation for countries to enter Somalia’s territorial waters using ‘all necessary measures’ to counter piracy and armed robbery at sea, the IMO has already taken a number of steps this year to tackle the piracy problem in the region.

The first development was the establishment of a Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS), in early January 2009, with the primary mission of facilitating discussion and coordination of actions among States and organisations aimed at addressing the issue. CGPCS, which includes the IMO Secretariat, has formed four working groups.

IMO also convened a high-level meeting in Djibouti between 26-29 January 2009, to help address the issue of piracy and armed robbery against ships off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden. The most significant outcome of the meeting was the adoption of the Code of Conduct concerning the Repression of Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. The Code is based on the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) and considered an important starting point for successful co-operation and coordination in the region.

State parties intend to fully co-operate in the arrest, investigation and prosecution of persons who have committed piracy or are reasonably suspected of having committed piracy, to seize suspect ships and the property on board such ships, and rescue ships, persons, and property subject to acts of piracy.

IMO Secretary-General, Efthimios Mitropoulos, has also urged the Nigerian Government to take action to help reduce the number of acts of piracy and armed robbery in the Gulf of Guinea and in the waters off the coast of Nigeria. In the meeting with Nigeria’s new Minister of Transport, Mr Ibrahim Bio, which took place on 20 February 2009 at the IMO Headquarters, Mr Mitropoulos stressed that ‘urgent action was needed to assure the international maritime community of Nigeria’s commitment to address the problem on a priority basis’.

A few days after the meeting with Nigeria’s Minister of Transport, Mr Mitropoulos officially opened, on 24 February 2009, the first meeting of a Working Group charged with considering operational coordination, information-sharing, regional capacity building, and the possible establishment of a regional coordination centre. Working Group Two met in early March 2009 to discuss legal issues.

Source: IMO Press Briefings 03/2009 of 30 January 2009, 04/2009 of 20 February 2009, and 05/2009 of 24 February 2009.

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^[1] The information and material used to compile this section often come from other sources. Every effort has been made to acknowledge such sources and, where possible, to contact copyright holders.