12.9 UNCTAD conventions
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in
1964. The Committee on Shipping is one of five standing committees of the
Conference; it has a professional staff. Since the mid-1960s it has been particularly
involved with the maritime interests of developing countries. The best known of
its conventions is the Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences.
During the 1960s the newly independent developing countries faced various
difficulties in establishing liner shipping operations. The struggle to develop an
international convention confirming their right to participate in the transportation
of their own trade became one of the major political issues of the 1960s and 1970s.
The issue was raised at the first UNCTAD conference in Geneva in 1964 and
the consultation debate was further developed at the second UNCTAD conference
in New Delhi in 1966. By 1972, when the third UNCTAD conference met at
Santiago de Chile, a draft Code of Conduct for the Liner Conference System was
issued to delegates and in the ensuing debate obtained almost total support from
the Group of 77, though it met with strong opposition from many of the developed
countries.
The vote was carried, the draft convention was approved and the UN General
Assembly requested the Secretary General of the United Nations to convene, under
the auspices of UNCTAD, a conference of plenipotentiaries18 to consider and adopt
a convention on a code of conduct for liner conferences. The conference was held
in two parts in late 1973 and early 1974, and the Convention on a Code of Conduct
for Liner Conferences was adopted by a vote of 72 to 7, with 5 abstentions. Details
of the convention can be found on p. 350.
The convention was opened for signature in New York from 1 July 1974 to 30
June 1975 and was to enter into force six months after the date on which not less
than twenty-four states with a combined tonnage of at least 25 per cent of the
world’s general cargo fleet had become contracting parties to it.19 These criteria
were met after the ratification of the convention by the Federal Republic of Germany
and the Netherlands as 57th and 58th contracting parties, altogether owning 28.7
per cent of the relevant tonnage, on 6 April 1983.20 Seventeen problems were
encountered by the EEC countries in ratifying this convention because in restricting
competition, it was held to be contrary to the Treaty of Rome.
Eventually a compromise was worked out known as the ‘Brussels Package’,
whereby EEC countries ratified the convention on the understanding that there
would be free competition in trade between EEC countries. In total this highly
controversial convention had taken almost 20 years.