Being More Confident in the Mechanical Safety (and safety
practices) of Your Cruise Vessel
By: James G. Apple, Editor-in-Chief, International
Judicial Monitor, and President, International Judicial Academy.
(In celebration
of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the American
Society of International Law in 2006, the Society published a small pamphlet
titled International Law: One Hundred Ways
It Shapes Our Lives. The Introduction
gives an explanation for its conception: an affirmation that “international law
not only exists, but also penetrates much more deeply and broadly into everyday
life than the people it affects may generally appreciate.” This column seeks to
elucidate and elaborate on many of the 100 ways briefly presented in the ASIL
pamphlet.)
That the cruise industry is related to international law was
shown to me by a personal experience that occurred several years ago. I was
recuperating from serious back surgery in the late winter and early spring in
Washington, D.C. I needed to get away from the rough winter weather that was proving
to be a major interruption and impediment to my recovery. My wife and I booked
passage on a cruise ship that was leaving a port in Florida for a trip around
the Caribbean. The majority of the passengers on this particular ship were
college students on spring break. Thus the voyage was filled with an excessive
amount of revelry.
Despite the carnival atmosphere, much to my surprise,
international law was mentioned twice during the voyage. The first came at the
very beginning of the cruise, before the ship left port, in the form of an
on-deck safety briefing involving all of the passengers about the use of life
boats and life preservers in the event of an emergency. Somewhat apologetically
a ship’s officer announced over the ship inter-com that this activity was
required by “international law.” The second mention of international law came
at the beginning of the musical show in the ship auditorium. The master of
ceremonies advised that there could be no recording or filming of the show,
because such was prohibited by “international law.” He was specifically
referring to international intellectual property law.
The cruise industry is a major international business. It
has grown from a single cruise in March, 1891 involving Near East ports and
ports on the Mediterranean Sea to an industry the revenue of which is expected
to total 36.2 billion $US in 2013. In the U.S. alone the cruise industry
employed 356,311 persons that paid a total of 17.4 billion $US in wages and
benefits.
Cruise industry jobs worldwide serve 20.3 million passengers
embarking from 2000 ports around the world, including North America, South
America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Mediterranean and Middle East, the Far
East, Southeast Asia and Australia.
In the 1980s there were 40 new ships built. That number
increased to 80 in the 1990s. From 2000 to 2013 the number of new ships built
for the cruise industry was 167. The fleet of cruise ships world wide now
stands at 292. The largest ship in the fleet is the Freedom of the Seas owned and operated by Royal Caribbean International. It is 112 feet long and
has 15 passenger decks.
International
Judicial Monitor