– the Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO);
– the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS);
– the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL);
– the International Group of P & I Clubs (IGP & I);
– the ICC International Maritime Bureau (ICC-IMB);
– the International Maritime Organization (IMO);
– the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF);
– the International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI); and
– the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, Division of Oceans Affairs and Law of the Sea (UNOLA/DOALOS).

Contact was also made with the Director of the Legal Bureau of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the Director of the Legal Department of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Both of these organizations have expressed interest in the work and have requested copies of the documentation produced by the Group, but have not participated in the work.
Dr Wiswall was appointed Chairman of the Group, with Dr Samuel Menefee as Rapporteur. As of this Report the Group has held four meetings in London, and the individual representatives participating in the work are identified in Annex B. In the course of its deliberations the Group posed a detailed questionnaire in 1999 and a brief supplementary questionnaire in 2000 to the Comité’s Member National Associations of Maritime Law; an abbreviated tabular representation of the responses to the principal questions is presented in Annex C. The Group wishes to express its gratitude to those Associations which answered either or both of the questionnaires; the names of those Associations and of the persons (where known) who prepared responses are listed in Annex D to this Report.
At the outset of its work, the Group was made aware of the activities of IMO, centred in its Maritime Safety Committee. A conscious effort has been made throughout to ensure that there would be no conflict and a minimum of overlap between the work of the two bodies, and that the respective work products would be as harmonious and mutually supportive as possible. There was early agreement that, broadly speaking, the Group would concentrate upon issues of jurisdiction and prosecution of the crimes of piracy and maritime violence, while IMO would continue its work on operational measures to investigate and report concerning incidents of piracy and maritime violence. Such a dual approach, it is hoped, will result in greater suppression of these unlawful acts.
It is difficult to overestimate the seriousness of the threat posed by maritime criminal activity, particularly with the entry of organized crime into the “business” of piracy and armed maritime theft, and the known fact that many incidents are not officially reported, if reported at all. For this reason the Group will present a Seminar at the Singapore Conference prior to discussion of the Group’s work. It may be noted, however, that legal inability to effectively prosecute the accused in several recent incidents, notably the case of the ALONDRA RAINBOW in 1999, illustrate the need for a Model National Law.
The principal objective of the draft Model National Law is to ensure that no act of piracy or maritime violence falls outside the jurisdiction of affected States to prosecute and punish these crimes or, alternatively, to extradite for prosecution in another State. A second objective in drafting the Model Law has been to ensure that it will assist in giving full effect (a) to the provisions relating to piracy contained in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and (b) to the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Navigation (“SUA” Convention) for those States which have ratified or acceded to the Convention (with or without the 1988 SUA Protocol). A third objective is that the provisions of the SUA Convention (and, where appropriate, the Protocol) will also be uniformly applied as national law in those States enacting the Model Law which are not Parties to either the Convention or Protocol. Finally, the draft Model Law seeks to ensure that all incidents falling under its definitions of the crimes of piracy and maritime violence are reported to the proper national authorities and that this information is, in turn, relayed onward to the competent international organizations.
It must be stressed that the task of the Singapore Conference is to review and comment upon the draft Model National Law. Because the draft is not the work product of the CMI, but of a Group of international organizations, the Conference may suggest minimal changes for future consideration by the Group but will not itself make changes to the document. At the conclusion of the Conference’s deliberations, an indicative “up-or-down” vote will be taken whether to recommend to the CMI Assembly that it endorse the draft Model Law. If endorsed by the Assembly, the Model Law will be passed on to the other participating international organizations for their consideration, and at the conclusion of this process, including any necessary future meeting of the Group in order to make final changes in the text, the Model National Law will be sent to the Member National Associations of the CMI with the request that they lobby their respective governments for enactment of all or as much as possible of the text as national law.
The draft text of the Model Law is set forth as Annex A to this Report.

Respectfully submitted,

1 The draft Model National Law is Annex A to this Report.
2 The object of the CMI is to contribute to the uniformity of maritime law “in all its aspects.” (1992 Constitution, Article 2).