10 December, 1978 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. Anticipating this anniversary the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly joined in recommending that a general review of existing United Nations approaches to the promotion and observance of human rights be undertaken.

On 27 March 1977 two Boeing 747 aircraft collided on the runway in Tenerife, Spain.

This was, from a legal point of view, to become perhaps the most complicated aircrash that ever occurred. Very shortly after this disaster parties, involved in the legal battle that would ensue, embarked upon large scale settlement negotiations, in many cases concurrent with legal proceedings in the USA.

The legal regulation of the international contract of sale as a typical contract concluded between foreign trade enterprises from various Member States of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) is contained, as is known, in the General Conditions of Delivery of Goods of the Council now in force; they are denoted as the 1968/1975 General Conditions of Delivery of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.

Regulation of maritime transport is, in many countries a common phenomenon. The following three categories of regulation can be distinguished:

– rules of competition in the field of maritime transport, often referred to as conference or anti-conference legislation,

– flag preference provisions, e.g., cargo reservation provisions,

– retortion provisions or retaliatory provisions.

Provisions in these three categories all have in common that they are aimed to influence the market conditions under which maritime transport takes place. I have outlined the various national provisions regulating maritime transport in a 1979 report for the Dutch section of the ILA. Part III of that report analyses the question to what extent national provisions are compatible with international public law. The present article is a summary of that analysis.

The report concerns three facets that can be viewed as promoting the national merchant marine:

a. financial facilities, such as subsidies; b. registration facilities by which foreign ship tonnage is attracted; c. facilities with regard to nationality and wages of the ship's crew so as to enable the shipowner to operate at lower costs.

The subject will be treated in two parts. Part I traces these aspects on the national level, at first factually and then in a legal light. In the second part, the findings are tested against the norms of international law.