ABSTRACT
5.001 The purpose of this chapter is to provide an historical overview of the development of European Union (“EU”) shipping law. 1 While there is an obvious overlap with other chapters, a separate chapter providing an historical overview is valuable to provide a background and a context to the rest of the book and to convey a sense of how the law on this area has evolved. It is proposed to analyse the development of EU shipping law using seven time-periods: (a) the 1950s; (b) the 1960s; (c) the 1970s; (d) the 1980s; (e) the 1990s; (f) the 2000s; and (g) the 2010s. While there is an obvious limitation to presenting the issues using the rubric of decades, it has a certain simplicity which facilitates the narrative.
