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U. MIAMI INT'L & COMP. L. REV.
V. 23
I. Introduction
In early 2012, three major disasters concerning
passenger ships made the headlines: the widely reported
Costa Concordia 5 sinking off the coast of Giglio, Italy, on
January 13, 2012; the sinking of the vessel Rabaul Queen, 6 7
which had a far larger death toll than the Costa Concordia, off
the coast of Finschhafen (Papua New Guinea) on February 2,
2012; and the MV Shariatpur V on March 13, 2012, which
sank on the Meghna River in Bangladesh. These events in
2012 have exemplified how passenger safety has recently
become an issue for the International Maritime Organization
("IMO"). However, the issue of compensation for passengers
involved in such disasters is one that has been debated for
several decades.
The particular risks of passenger transport on the seas
are not limited to cruise ships. 8 A main concern revolves
around roll on-roll off (Ro-Ro) ferries, which account for a
disproportionately large percentage of lives lost at sea and
5 Costa Concordia: What happened, BBC News (Feb. 10, 2015),
http://www.bbc.com/news/ world-europe-16563562.
6 See Commission of Inquiry Report, Commission of Inquiry into the Sinking
of Rabaul Queen, 1, 25 (June 28, 2012), available at
http://www.coi.gov.pg/ d ocu m en Is/ CO I % 20M V % 20R A B A U L % 20Q U E
EN/Rabaul % 20Queen% 20COI% 20final% 20report% 20June% 202012.pdf.
7 See Norman A. Martinez Gutierrez, New European Rules on the Liability of
Carriers of Passengers by Sea in the Event of Accidents, 18 J. OF Int'l Mar. L.
293,293 n.1-2 (2012); see generally id. at 293-305.
8 See Kay P. Rodrega, Neue EU-Verordnung fir Kreuzfahrtreisen, 4
Monatsschrift für Deutsches Recht 194, 194-197 (2013) (describing
recent developments regarding specific EU legislation about cruise
ships).
