Emne: Submission from Norway to the HNS-LNG Correspondence Group

Fra: Erik Røsæg

Dato: Tue, 21 Aug 2007

Til: nifs-hnslng@jus.uio.no

Dear Colleagues,

Inspired by the recent very helpful submissions of Mr Marier and Mr Naumof, I would like to offer further comments on some of the issues.


SPIRIT OF THE CONVENTION
It has been submitted that the proposal to make the receivers the surety of the title holders not subject to the jurisdiction of a State Party is not in line with the spirit of the Convention. To me, what is the spirit of the Convention is not self evident, and a reference to the spirit of the Convention is certainly not one of the methods of interpretation recognized by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969. May I therefore ask for an elaboration of this argument, for the benefit of myself and our report?

If State Party A feels that a certain practice of another State Party B is not in line with the spirit of the Convention, but is in line with the wording, is there anything the State Party A can do to make State Party B alter its practices?



SECURITY
To me, it seems obvious that any security that a title holder not subject to the jurisdiction of a State party must put up must be limited to a certain amount and to a certain time. On this assumption, what exactly are the arguments other than the cost against this solution?


ADVANCE PAYMENT OF A FIXED LEVY
As far as I understand the second of the three proposals very clearly presented by Mr. Naumof today, they will certainly prevent arrears in the collection of levies, as the levies are collected before the cargo is allowed to be discharged. However, in these cases, there must be a levy per tonne fixed at a time when one does not know the losses attributable to the year in question or the total amount of cargo in respect of that year. (This applies whatever year one choses as the relevant years.) Would not that create a risk that the Fund would not collect sufficient revenue in a certain year? And would that not be a system that is different from the  system provided for in the Convention, and incompatible with the wording of the Convention?


I look forward to further constructive comments.


Regards,
Erik Røsæg

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    Professor Erik Røsæg (Rosaeg)
Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law
University of Oslo
POB 6706 St. Olavs plass
    N-0130 Oslo, Norway

    Tel: (+47) 2285 9752 - (+47) 4800 2979
Fax: (+47) 9476 0573
erik.rosag@jus.uio.no
https://rosaeg.no/erikro/index.html

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