1 THE HISTORY OF THE CONVENTION

Following the proposal by some member associations to attempt to unify the law on arrest of ships1 a questionnaire was prepared by the Bureau Permanent of the CMI and on the basis of the responses received the International Subcommittee, that had meanwhile been constituted, instructed one of its members to prepare the outline of a possible convention. On that basis an initial draft was prepared for consideration by the CMI Conference to be held in Oslo in the Summer of 1933.2 That draft was not well received by the delegates of several maritime associations,3 and, amongst others, the issue of the liability of the claimant for wrongful arrest was strongly opposed by some delegations, including those of the United Kingdom and of the United States. Another issue that had given rise to conflicting opinions had been that of the claims in respect of which a vessel could be arrested, the delegates of civil law countries being of the view that arrest should be permissible in respect of any claim, whether maritime or not, and the delegates of common law countries being instead of the view that arrest could be permissible only in respect of claims that could be enforced in rem and, specifically, claims in respect of which Admiralty jurisdiction existed.4