Article by JoAnne Zawitoski
Although private marine terminals in the United States have flourished since at least the early nineteenth century, the regulation of the United States marine terminal industry is of far more recent vintage. Federal regulation of marine terminal operators in the United States began in the late 1930s, when the United States Maritime Commission (the predecessor agency to the Federal Maritime Commission) extended its regulation of ocean common carriers inland.
The late 1930s also marked the passage of a federal statute, the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, which governed the rights and liabilities of shippers and carriers for damage to cargo. In 1959 the Supreme Court laid the groundwork for the inland extension of a carrier's rights and benefits under the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act to terminal operators through its seminal decision in Robert C. Herd & Co. v. Krawill Machinery Corp.
Beginning in the mid-1960s with the adoption by most states of the Uniform Commercial Code, marine terminal operators also became subject to state laws governing the liability of warehousemen for damaged cargo. At about the same time, widespread social concerns about the deteriorating quality of the environment and the rise in crime along the waterfront led to the enactment of new federal and state laws and regulations governing marine terminal operators in these areas.
The most recent growth in the regulation of marine terminal operators has been in the international arena, in the form of an international pollution convention that affects marine terminal operators, as well as in the form of a new proposed convention governing the liability of operators of transport terminals in international trade for damage to cargo.
The purpose of this Article is to outline those key federal, state, and international regulations that expressly mention or materially affect marine terminal operators in the United States. There are four major areas in which these regulations fall. Part II of this Article will discuss the federal regulation of marine terminal agreements and tariffs. Part III will outline a marine terminal operator's liability for cargo damage under federal, state, and international law. Part IV will address the environmental regulation of marine terminal operators on the federal, state, and international levels, and Part V will discuss those state and federal regulations relating to the protection and security of waterfront facilities. The topic of federal, state, and international regulation of marine terminal operators is a very broad one. By focusing upon the foregoing four major areas of express regulation of marine terminal operators, this Article necessarily excludes the following from its scope: (1) federal, state, or international regulations that apply to United States marine terminal operators indirectly; (2) federal, state, or international regulations that apply to every business, including marine terminal operators, merely by virtue of being in business; and (3) minor or immaterial federal, state, or international regulations that pertain to United States terminal operators.
About the Author
JoAnne Zawitoski. J.D. 1980, Georgetown University Law Center. Proctor Member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States and Chairman of that Association's Stevedoring and Terminal Operations Committee. Admiralty and Maritime partner in Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, Baltimore, Maryland.
Citation
64 Tul. L. Rev. 439 (1989)