The convention on liability and compensation for damage in connection with the transport by sea of hazardous and hoxious substances (the HNS Convention) employs the following concept of damages: - loss of life, bodily harm, damage to property and the environment; - loss of profit or income; - the cost of prevention and the cost of restoring the status quo before pollution. The author discusses the institution of "damnum emergens" in the context of loss of life, bodily harm and damage to property. The character of ecological damage makes it impossible to institute a process of complete restitution. Repairs carried out to the environment should be "as far as is possible" and should make it possible once more to implement public laws.

The London Convention on salvage at sea - SALVAGE 89 - was signed in 1989, and focuses, inter alia, on the environment. It regulates the salvaging of the maritime environment, and, above all, gives the salvager the right to a reward for action that was directed towards avoiding or limiting damage to the environment. The ratification of the SALVAGE 89 Convention by Poland will require changes in the 1961 code of maritime law. The Baltic is a heavily polluted sea, and the introduction of any legal instrument that may result in steps to combat environmental pollution is highly desirable. The SALVAGE 89 Convention came into force on 14 July 1996. The author of this essay is a supporter of Poland's ratification of the Convention.

Nowadays there is no doubt that the fundamental social rights established by the International Labour Organisation are protected by Community law. This responsibility is a result of the universal character of human rights and the profoundly humanist aspect ofwork. The author is of the opinion that social rights function in the legal order of the Community as general principles borrowed from international public law and from national legal dispensations.

Professor Mirosław H. Koziński has made a comparison of selected Polish publications in the field of maritime law and the law of the sea between 1969 and 1999. The list of articles contains 1170 bibliographical items, including 170 books, 560 articles and 56 glosses concerning maritime law. There are 82 books and 305 articles on the law of the sea.

The author deals with changes in current maritime law, changes that stem from, inter alia, the expansion and diversification of the law. New emerging forms ofuse of the sea have led to an increase in the number of entities subject to this branch of the law. On the other hand, the importance of public-legal normalisations continues to grow. Thus, one cannot continue to understand the law of the sea within the traditional formulation of its being the civil-law regulation of maritime shipping. This article proposes that a new branch of maritime law be formulated within maritime law in a broad sense - that is, maritime economic law. As maritime economie law we should understand that part ofmaritime and general legal regulations which apply to maritime trade, broadly understood. Such law must be understood not just in a public legal sense, but also in a private legal sense, and, indeed, in terms of the interaction of both types ofregulation. In practice, it is linked to the relation between maritime economic law and economic law and international economic law. In a further part of the essay, the author presents the range of objects and subjects ofmaritime economic law. Research topics within this branch ofmaritime law should include: the exploitation of the natural resources of the sea; international maritime trade; national and international forms of shaping the shipping market; port-sea trade; and ship building and construction at sea. EC Shipping Law could be the model for economic regulations in maritime law. Maritime economic law, in the author's opinion, should be an instrument of implementing the maritime policies of the state.

The law of 20 December 1996 relating to maritime ports and landing places introduced into the Polish legal system a specific kind of joint-stock company with the characteristics of an earmarked fund, subject to particular public legal provisions. According to the author, it was a legislative mistake to create the notion (crucial to the law) of"a managing entity". To ascribe to the port company the status of a public utility was an example of complete legal incomprehension. A port company should have exceptional legal status. To create and to run such a company requires substantial funds, exceeding the resources of a private entrepreneur. Because of the importance of seaports for the national economy, these tasks must devolve on the state. The law of 20 December 1996 should be completely revised. Best of all, it should be replaced by a new law.

Not all institutions of international law of war at sea have stood the test of time. Several of them are no longer current at all; others have been subject to degenerative changes; and there are yet others that, while formally still in existence, even in established law, are vanishing through desuetude. "Days of favour" belong largely to this category. This institution applies to the situation of a ship at the commencement of armed conflict. In general terms, we can define it as a period of grace allotted by a party in an armed conflict to ships of its adversary. It allows these to leave an enemy port after unloading or loading goods, with the aim of enabling these vessels to sail to one of their own ports or to a neutral port, actions that the unexpected outbreak of war had hindered.

The author critically discusses the legislation relating to ports and landing areas of 20 December I 996. He writes that it permits the existence and functioning in one port ofmany "managing" entities. Law relating to water is the third piece of legislation - along with those pieces relating to ports and to maritime administration - regulating the status of seaports, understood as "water and ground". The fourth piece of legislation regulating this status is that relating to trade in real estate. The author devotes a great deal of attention to payments made to ports. He also writes of payments for port services.

After the historic changes in 1989, there began a process of creating companies with their own capital. In the course of time they have been commercialised and privatised. An observation of the changes that have occurred in the world economy argues in favour of a process of combining companies with their own capital, above all in the areas of shipbuilding and of seaports. Fragmented economic entities should strengthen their position in the international market in order to meet competition. Polish law has not yet regulated issues connected the creation of a business consortium or with its functioning. In the European Union, there is also still a lack of complex regulation of the law relating to consortia. The author proposes the creation ofmaritime consortia on the eastern and western seaboards of Poland with a view to adapting the Polish economy to the demands of international competition.

A military danger zone is a specially designated part ofthe open sea, together with the air space above it, which is temporarily or permanently given over to purposes of conducting experiments with new types of weaponry and technology, and to that of training naval forces under conditions that are as close to real ones as possible. Third party states have only limited access to military danger zones, or are forbidden to use them altogether. Officially declaring part of the sea a danger area protects the safety of international maritime navigation and air transport while dangerous military activities are being conducted in that area.