Book Review: Shipping law and admiralty jurisdiction in South Africa

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Author: SD Girvin
• Citation: (2000) 12 SA Merc LJ 352
• Published date: 25 May 2019
• Pages: 352-357
• Date: 25 May 2019

Book

Review/Boekresensie

Shipping Law and Admiralty Jurisdiction in South Africa.

By John Hare.

Juta & Co Ltd, Cape Town. 1999. lxviii & 1060 pp. Price R995 (hard

cover); R795 (soft cover).

The appearance of a major new text on maritime law in South Africa is an event

of signal importance for all South African maritime lawyers and indeed also

foreign maritime lawyers wishing to have an informed knowledge of shipping law

as practised in South Africa. Although intended as the successor to BR Bamford's

The Law of Shipping and Carriage in South Africa,

the third edition of which

appeared in 1984, Professor Hare's aim has been to write a text which bridges the

divide between English maritime law and the Roman-Dutch common law of

South Africa. He has sought to present a thoroughly modernized and

comprehensive analysis of the application of the principles of maritime law in

South Africa and joins a handful of writers of such one-volume texts written

in other jurisdictions throughout the English-speaking world. (For the United

Kingdom, see Christopher Hill

Maritime Law 5

ed (1998); for Australia, Martin

Davies & Anthony Dickey

Shipping Law

2 ed (1995); for the United States of

Americs, Thomas J Schoenbaum

Admiralty and Maritime Law

2 ed (1994).)

An important feature of this book is the extremely attractive way in which the

material is presented. Indeed, this feature is a major (and welcome) innovation.

The hardcover edition contains a gold-embossed fouled anchor on the front

cover, while the softcover edition contains two fine sketches, on the front and

back covers, of the

Areti L

(see

Ex parte Terminus Compania Naviera SA and

Grinrod Marine (Pty) Ltd: In re the

Areti L 1986 (2) SA 446 (C)) and the

Alwyn

Vincent.

(These are taken from oil paintings by the author's artist wife.) Each part

of the book begins with, and contains throughout, a sketch appropriate to the

section and also some appropriate words, sometimes from decided cases or older

authorities (for example, at 663), sometimes from the author himself, and

sometimes both (see, for example, at 171, 369, 379, and 573). The chapter on

salvage, for example, contains a sketch representing the salvage tugs,

John Ross

and

Wolraad Woltemade.

The chapter on 'The Jurisprudence of Carriage by Sea'

contains a sketch of a container vessel — one of Safmarine's 'great whites',

perhaps — being loaded. The opening facing-page on 'salvage' contains a

quotation from Dr Lushington in

The Albion

(1861) Lush 282, 167 ER 121. A

further feature of this book, marking it out from traditional law books, is the

anecdotal accounts by the author, often hidden away in footnotes (see, for

example, at 313n163, 330n3, 358n32, and 406n100). This, perhaps, reflects the

concern by the author that 'shipping law is far too interesting a subject to allow it

to dry out altogether' (at 10).

First impressions of the book, superficially daunting at over 1 000 printed

pages, are very favourable. The purchaser will acquire a text that analyses all the

main areas of maritime law. There are, in addition to the main text,

comprehensive appendices of nearly 240 pages. These contain all the relevant

352

(2000) 12 SA Merc LJ 352

© Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd