Successful International Conference on Arbitration in Maritime and Transport Disputes

The Arbitration in Maritime and Transport Disputes Conference presented by the IBA (International Bar Association) was held from 26 - 28 April 2007. More than 150 attorneys and arbitrators from 30 countries convened in the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce.

Dr. Wolfgang Kühn of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, Düsseldorf, member of the board of the German Institution of Arbitration (Deutsche Institution for Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit e.V. [DIS]), who had initiated the conference stated: “This conference not only provided information about current topics of international arbitration in maritime and transport law. It also confirmed Hamburg’s importance as the eighth largest container port in the world."

A wide variety of topics were presented and discussed under the guidance of leading international legal experts. These included, for example, the differences in the maritime law of the largest international ports, the issue of when arbitration is useful at all, or specific fields of arbitration, such as ship financing or arbitration in multimodal transport. For the first time the subject of “Arbitration in Aviation Disputes” was on the agenda in Hamburg. The conference participants visited the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, part of the United Nations, which has its seat in Hamburg. The conference ended with a visit of the Airbus plant.