The Author is an expert on United States’ maritime (admiralty) law and on American legislative process.

The Rotterdam Rules, or the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partially by the Sea, drafted by the UN General Assembly on 11 December 2008 (Resolution 63/122), create a new legal order on affreightment and thus aim at replacing the Hague Rules, the Hague-Visby Rules and the Hamburg Rules.

The Author argues that the dominant legislative contribution to the draft is American. The United States have amended their own maritime law and, at the same time, internationalized some of its content. If the US ratification process is completed within the next 2 years with the signature of the President, the USA, representing 25% of the world’s overall tonnage, shall be the game-changer in international law on carriage of goods by the sea.