Summary

The authors take the view that the Estonian laws need to be amended and supplemented to achieve legal clarity and the desired interaction between various legal instruments. The seizure of ships must be aligned with the Geneva Convention adopted in 1999; in particular, a distinction must be made between the general seizure of a ship and the securing of an action in civil proceedings. It is crucial here, however, to put an end to the use of the erroneous translation of the 1999 Geneva Convention, to translate it again and correctly, to publish it and to achieve the status of the convention as the main legal source for the courts when applying the seizure of ships. The provisions which incorporate the regulations of the convention into the Law of Property Act or repeat the regulations of the convention in a misleading manner should be annulled. As part of further revision of the law of the sea, it would be necessary to develop the necessary implementing provisions for the application of the 1999 Geneva Convention and to enforce these as a special type of non-contentious proceedings. The legal clarity achieved with the revision should ensure fast and efficient seizure of a ship and, if necessary, the assigning of an administrator to a ship and the release of a ship from seizure, if another form of collateral is provided to the maritime claim. This all without lengthy legal disputes, caused by the current confusing and contradictory regulation.