Getting to know your EXCO: Francis (Frank) Nolan

• Frank Nolan is a veteran with dozens of years of experience in maritime law, a maritime law expert and past president of the MLA US. But how would you describe Frank Nolan and what sparked your passion for Maritime Law?

I was drawn to maritime law by a number of circumstances and experiences. There were a number of Navy men in my family history and my father’s family were heavily engaged in port operations and other sectors of the shipping industry. Before I began my law studies in 1971, I had lived and studied in Europe and travelled by North Atlantic passenger ship in both directions. My undergraduate degree was in Economics with a minor in foreign languages. I loved history and came to see trade by sea as central to human life. In over half a century of law practice I was primarily engaged in Marine finance but with detours into shipbuilding disputes in the US, Europe and Asia as well as complex charter disputes.

In the early 1980’s, I became involved in the CMI’s efforts to draft a convention on maritime liens and mortgages, joining the US delegation to the Lisbon Conference in 1985. The CMI project developed into the 1993 Convention on Maritime Liens and Mortgages. Despite the shortcomings of and tepid reception to the 1993 Convention, I was deeply impressed with the level of debates and breadth of expertise demonstrated by the maritime titans of that day from around the world. Those impressions made me keen to stay connected to CMI to this day.

• What has your experience been like so far as a new member of the CMI Executive Council?

I had worked closely for a number of years with many members of the CMI leadership, including the Executive Council and the Administration, so most of the personalities in EXCO were already known to me. I am nonetheless delighted to have the opportunity to work with these people to advance the fortunes of CMI.  Each of us is bound to work for the betterment of CMI and not to merely represent the countries or regions from which we come.  But we will of course always have the knowledge, perspectives and sensitivities of our ports of origin.  All of this is a strength for CMI. I am very fortunate to serve with a group of men and women for whom I have both respect and affection. We are all also fortunate to work under the leadership of our dynamic president, Ann Fenech. We are all moving at flank speed on a number of projects in a range of areas from environment, to seamen’s rights, status of various craft at the margins of traditional maritime activity and other highly relevant areas.

• Can you tell us about your work with the International Working Group on Mobile Offshore Renewables Units?

At the Montreal Meetings in 2023, I had the good fortune to attend part of the presentations orchestrated by Alexander Severance on the wide-ranging legal issues facing mobile offshore renewables units (MORUs) in the marine environment. I and others remarked to the Exco that this area deserved to be the subject of an IWG.  I was then appointed to serve as co-chair of that IWG with Alex.     In the 2 years since the IWG was authorized, we have conducted extensive industry engagement in order to familiarize CMI members with the practical issues facing MORUs, issued an extensive first questionnaire and processed the responses. The foregoing served as the platform for the MORU presentations and programs at the recently concluded Tokyo Conference.  The IWG has members with marine finance and project finance backgrounds as well as those with expertise in chartering, insurance and limitation of liability issues.  Over the coming months, the IWG will be proposing consideration of an international convention to address the most significant impediments to the expansion of MORUs.  The issues will no doubt be arrayed for discussion at the 2026 Rio Conference.

• What was it like advising the US delegation during the UNCITRAL negotiations on the Judicial Sale of Ships Convention?

I was pleased to be called by the US State Department in 2018 and asked to be their legal advisor at UNCITRAL’s Working Group VI which took up the CMI Draft Convention on the Enforcement of Judicial Sales of Ships, as I had been very heavily engaged at the CMI Working Group level from the early days of that effort right through its adoption by the CMI membership in Hamburg in 2014.  The proceedings at UNCITRAL were conducted in a very formal way with diplomatic etiquette required.  This was both new and a challenge for me. While there were many faces I knew around the room, there were also many new personalities.  In addressing positions taken by other delegations, we always referenced the remarks “of the distinguished representative” who went before us.  The US diplomat in charge day to day was a very knowledgeable lawyer who kept an open mind about the subject matter and was very receptive to advice and open to new information.  Many key delegations were led by my fellow CMI colleagues and others served as advisers. The UNCITRAL sessions were held twice a year, once in New York at UN Headquarters and then in Vienna.  Unfortunately, the Pandemic scuttled that jet life and we were relegated to conferring by meeting apps at hours of the day and night that were quite a strain on many delegations. Despite those difficulties, Working Group VI managed to arrive at a consensus Draft which was adopted by the General Assembly in the fall of 2022 and has since been signed by 36 States and ratified by 2 at last count.     

• Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunities or challenges for maritime law in the next few years?

The biggest challenge for maritime law is to keep pace with developments in the shipping industry, trade practices, environmental challenges use of resources in the seas.  These are matters of both private and public law.  Overlaying all of that is the need or desirability of uniformity of maritime law.  Lawyers are by nature generally reactive.   On the other hand, organizations like CMI and our constituent MLAs should not be writing solutions where no problem is clear or in focus.  In my view, CMI has done well in recent years with standing committees actively monitoring developments in the Arctic, seafarer welfare, MASS, piracy, fraudulent registries  and now MORUs, among others.  By engaging as vigorously as we have with IMO and UNCITRAL, we are also creating paths for improvements that are long overdue ever since the United Nations became the prime international legal draftsman after World War II. The path taken in arriving at the Beijing Convention proves the point.