Book Review

• Author: Michael William White
• Position: OAM, QC, Adjunct Professor, Marine and Shipping Law Unit, TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland
• Pages: 21-23

(2016) 30 ANZ Mar LJ 21

BOOK REVIEW

Kate Lewins, International Carriage of Passengers by Sea (Sweet & Maxwell, 2016)

ISBN: 9780414056961

Michael White*

Australian maritime law scholarship and jurisprudence has been a long time in developing but over the recent

years its scholars and judges are gradually filling the gap and the latest book on maritime law Kate Lewins

International Carriage of Passengers by Sea, is a welcome addition to that end. The book is comprised of 473

pages spread over five parts, with numerous sub-parts. Lewins is an Associate Professor at Murdoch University,

Perth where she has been for almost 20 years and before that she was in practice for many years which gives her

wide legal experience to write this book.

Of course it is not the only contribution she has made to maritime law. She has lectured maritime law at Murdoch

University for many years, has made a major contribution to the Maritime Law Association of Australia and New

Zealand and has been the Director of the International Maritime Law Arbitration Moot since she took the task

over from Sarah Derrington many years ago. The IMLAM moot has been the largest and best international

maritime moot in the world for many years and being its Director is no mean feat.

The subject matter of the book, the law of carriage of passengers by sea, is important for Australia and more

widely. Apart from the large numbers of passengers carried in ferries in Australian waters, the many tourist

passengers that travel out daily to the Great Barrier Reef by boat and, of course, more and more cruise ships

operate out of Australian ports. The cruise industry makes up a significant part of the Australian economy. Over

the period 2015-2016 there were 1,015 cruise ship visits to Australian ports, carrying some 2.76 million passengers

who spent A$1.7 billion dollars (passenger and crew spending, supply of provisions, bunkers and the like).1 The

Australian cruising industry has become one of the fastest growing passenger markets in the world and over the

2013-2014 period it achieved over a 20% increase, with only one other country in the world achieving double

digit growth.2 The number of ships based in Australia during the Southern Pacific cruising season is steadily rising

and from December 2016 the Royal Caribbean’s newest US$ 1 billion dollar cruise ship will be based in Sydney

for part of each year. This ship, the Ovation of the Seas, can accommodate almost 5,000 passengers a nd about

1,500 crew.3

All of this activity means there will be increased litigation and advices sought about legal liability for passengers

arising from these numbers going to sea. Those of us who are former mariners are very concerned at the thought

of a major calamity with a fully loaded large cruise vessel meeting a major calamity through ship wreck, collision

or fire, with perhaps over 6,000 souls on board and only a few hundred of them trained mariners. The loss of life

and property could be immense and so this is where Lewin’s book is so timely and helpful.

Part 1 of the book addresses the regulation of the industry, both at an international and domestic Australian level,

where the author deals with who is defined as a passenger, what international conventions apply, including

UNCLOS and SOLAS,4 and crimes at sea. Each topic is dealt with in great depth throughout the book so the basis

of the actual maritime law foundations are described as well as where the maritime law fits in to the whole legal

structure.

Crimes occurring at sea on passenger ships when beyond territorial waters presents a vexed problem as to which

country has jurisdiction to prosecute and the effective resources and courts in which to do so. In territorial waters

the coastal state jurisdiction applies and for Australia the relevant State criminal law applies of its own right out

to 12 nautical miles and by force of Commonwealth laws to the 2 00nm outer limit of the EEZ.5 Lewins gives a

* OAM, QC, Adjunct Professor, Marine and Shipping Law Unit, TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland.

1 Australian Cruise Association, Economic Impact Assessment of the Cruise Industry in Australia, 2015-2016 (August 2016) Tourism

Australia <http://www.tourism.australia.com/documents/Industry/ACA_Cruise_EIA_2015-16_Executive_Summary.pdf>.

2 Inga Ting, ‘Australia named world’s faster-growing cruise market in the CLIA Report’ Traveller, (online), May 27 2015,

<http://www.traveller.com.au/australia-named-worlds-fastestgrowing-cruise-market-in-clia-report-gh9u44>. Of course Australian figures

comprise only 4.5% of the world cruise market with North America by far the largest and many of the EU countries coming next.

3 Annie Dang, ‘Ovation of the Seas cruise ship: New, billion-dollar cruise giant to call Australia home’, Traveller (online), 5 April 2015 <

http://www.traveller.com.au/ovation-of-the-seas-cruise-ship-new-billiondollar-cruise-giant-to-call-australia-home-1mlg0d>.

4 International Convention for the Law of the Sea 1982; International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea.

5 See Michael White, Australian Offshore Laws (Federation Press, 2009) ch 4; now available gratuitously for access online by the UQ

Library espace <https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:203661/Australian_Offshore_Laws.pdf>.