Legal analysis of Collision Liability in the context of Unmanned Shipping

Sammanfattning: The aim of this graduation thesis Legal analysis of Collision Liability in the context of Unmanned Shipping is to examine how the implementation of commercial unmanned ships will interact with the legal framework for collision liability. New technological advancements have proven that the notion of an unmanned ship might become a reality in the near future. For this reason, the author decided to examine selective parts of the maritime regime governing liability for collisions at sea in order to describe their suitability with the notion of unmanned ships. Since the unmanned ship is characterised by advanced technology, this thesis additionally discusses whether the product liability regime could be utilised for distributing liability. Chapter 2 highlights the technical characteristics in unmanned ships with the purpose of familiarising the reader with similarities and differences in regard to traditional shipping. The legal status of unmanned ships under public and private international law is examined in Chapter 3. Additionally, the chapter ascertains that the unmanned ship will be imposed duties as well as being able to enjoy rights and privileges derived from the international conventions to the same extent as their manned counterparts. Chapter 4 and 5 provide an overview of the liability regimes and identifies potential problems in relation to unmanned shipping. Chapter 6 addresses the identified problems when applying the existing liability regimes to the notion of unmanned shipping. Final conclusions are drawn in Chapter 7. The results show that while the technical knowledge could enable deployment of unmanned ships, there are legal barriers presented by international maritime law that must be overcome before such deployment. The complete lack of human presence on board the ship is especially troublesome since the regulations governing collision liability are founded on the basic premise that humans are present on board the ship. There are, furthermore, indications that concepts derived from the product liability regime could find application or act as a complement to the maritime law. Thus, expanding the traditional scope of entities that may accrue liability. The author recommends a further review of the legal framework for collision liability on an international level, followed by amendments to accommodate the peculiarities of unmanned shipping.