NIT LEAGUE, WSC ENDORSE CARGO LIABILITY REFORM

NIT LEAGUE, WSC ENDORSE CARGO LIABILITY REFORM    The World Shipping Council and The National Industrial Transportation League said Thursday they “have agreed to pursue a common set of positions” in regard to “a new cargo liability regime for international ocean transport.”
   After months of discussions, the WSC, which represents a coalition of ocean carriers, and the NIT League, the nation's largest shipper association, found common ground in a U.S. Senate working draft of a 1999 proposal by the U.S. Maritime Law Association to revise the 1936 Carriage of Goods By Sea Act (COGSA).
   Ironically, their cooperation almost guarantees the proposed COGSA revision is defunct politically as domestic legislation. Christopher Koch, president of the World Shipping Council, told AS+ the push now is for the NIT League and the WSC to help shape an international regime for cargo liability through UNCITRAL and the Comite Maritime International (CMI).
   To that end, the WSC has taken the considerable risk of supporting the elimination of the current COGSA exemption for errors in navigation or management of a vessel, which many ocean carriers want to retain.
   The “common set of positions” also includes setting Hague-Visby liability limits    for lost or damaged cargo that would be higher than the $500-per-package limitation found in COGSA. The new limits would be in the range of $800 to $1,100 per package.