Legal Research

The Attorney At Sea

By pbingham

Planning a cruise ship vacation this summer?  Settling into a deck chair with the bright Caribbean sun overhead, a frothy tropical libation in hand ...  our thoughts naturally turn to the unique aspects of Cruise Ship and Admiralty Law.  Some intriguing questions:

• Marijuana is legal in the Netherlands.  Can I smoke some on a Holland America Line ship?
• If I'm injured while on a shore excursion in a foreign country, can I sue the tour operator when I'm back home in the United States?  Should I sue the cruise line?
• My baby was born during the cruise!  What citizenship is available to him?  My home country?  The country to which the ship is registered?   The next port-of-call to whose hospital I was taken?
• If I'm the victim of an onboard crime perpetrated by a crew member, which country  has jurisdiction to prosecute?  My home country?  The crew member's home country?  The country within whose waters the ship was passing when the crime occurred? 

If you'd like to resolve some of these questions now in order to relax during your cruise, the Research Center has some suggestions for you:

• Justia.com has a brief Cruise Ship Law Overview and links to pertinent regulations.
• The Miami law firm Lipcon, Margulies & Alsina publishes the Cruise Line Law Reporter, and the informative Cruise Ship Law blog  "dedicated to cruise passenger and crew safety, seafarer conditions, maritime law and all types of injuries at sea."
• The United States Coast Guard has issued the Cruise Ship Consumer Fact Sheet.
• The treatise Benedict on Admiralty devotes its volume 10 to Cruise Ship Law.  It's available online at Lexis.com, and also in print at the Research Center (KF1104.B4 1958 v.10).

Posted by Patricia Bingham-Harper

Full post as published by FSU College of Law Library Blog on June 03, 2008 (boomark / email).