ABSTRACT
The historical experience just examined suggests both motivations and actors shaping the response of the international system towards demands for greater cooperation among states on maritime issues. Rather than devising any regular forum or organization to deal with maritime affairs, governments initially approached questions of international cooperation as well as national regulation of their own maritime industries rather gingerly and on an ad hoc basis. Among the best known achievements of the former organization, which set up a Maritime Law Committee, are the York/Antwerp Rules concerning the general average and the convention for the unification of certain rules relating to bills of lading. The United Nations initiated the first direct step towards the creation of Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization. Recognizing a need for a permanent international organization to coordinate maritime affairs, the UN Economic and Social Council approved the recommendations of its Temporary Transport and Communications Commission in June of 1946 calling for such an organization.
